Phoenix Rising: The Journal of A Rebel Pilot
by Flagwaver
Summary: We all know the events surrounding the heroes of the Rebellion, but what about the others? This is the weekly journal of one of those heroes who is seen, but unseen through the series: a Rebel pilot in Phoenix Squadron. Some of the events may interact with others that you have heard of, but this time they are seen from a different point of view.
1. Entry 001

Entry 001: A Long Time Ago in a galaxy far, far away...

At least that's what it felt like. It wasn't, though. The truth is that it happened to me, and is continuing to happen to me as I write this. Force willing, it will continue to happen to me until I am old and gray. More than likely, it will just keep happening until some Imperial gets a lucky shot, at which point, please enjoy a drink on me. Heck, enjoy an entire bottle on me (encoded with this journal is a link to an account with ten credits plus whatever interest it accrues over the time it takes me to buy the agroplanet).

My name is Ander, Ander Sonalex, and this is my story.

I was born on the agro-planet Ukio. My father was a human, but was able to get himself appointed as an overseer for a handful of Ukian farms. During the Clone Wars, he was a logistical acquisitions specialist on Coruscant. He and my mother moved to Ukio to oversee food production for the Republic war effort. In his official capacity, he boosted distribution of crop productions almost three times what they previously were. This was all done through a hub system that he designed, had ownership over, and soon spread to the rest of the planet.

After the war ended, he was granted control of the flagship hub by the Imperial governor. I later found out that it was because that governor was getting a 10% kickback from the sizeable profits my father had earned. At the time, I was too young to understand any of it. All I knew was that I was the son of a Clone War veteran turned agro-entrepreneur. However, I wanted more than sitting in some boardroom counting my credits.

I loved flying. Whether it was flying with my father in his airspeeder as he inspected the hub or flying with my mother into town. I watched holodramas of the heroic Clone Wars pilots, read datacomics of heroes like Fenn Rau and his Mandalorian Protectors as they trained the Clone Army and fought the evil Separatists, and collected the various squadron patches of notable Clone Wars fighter units. I even built a repulsor model of a V-Wing when I was just six, though I ended up crashing it into a combine not long after.

When I turned twelve, I convinced my mother to enroll me in the Imperial Cadet Corps. She loved the idea, because her father was an admiral of a Republic Cruiser during the war. I never really met my grandpa, though. His ship was shot down when the Jedi turned against the Supreme Chancellor.

Father didn't like the idea, though. In my second week, he stormed into the Junior Academy yelling and screaming for me to stop being childish and get back home. At one point, he came close to punching the Training Officer. There was nothing he could really do without sounding disloyal to the Empire, though, so he had to let it be. I remember him telling me that it was only a phase and I'd be back to the agro-hub when I tired of it. The problem is that I never tired of it.

I only spent one year in the Junior Academy at Ukio. My father had always been insistent that I keep myself in peak physical shape and my tutor droids were all the latest models, so the courses were relatively easy for me. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't the best in either category, but I had enough to qualify for an expedited program and placement in a Senior Academy before I turned fifteen as per standards. I was lucky that I got the Sector Academy at Lothal. It was brand new and I was part of the fifth class to ever attend!

I was tapped for the Flight Program in the first month of training there. My mother bought me a simulator after I crashed the V-wing model to teach me how to fly. I'm pretty sure I spent more time in there than I did my bed at night. During a grand melee dog fight among the Flight Program cadets to test reflexes and aptitude, I was able to take out all of my classmates and one of the instructors before I was disabled. I impressed the instructor so much, that she named me Class Commander.

Looking back, the Class Commander role was more of a punishment. Whenever anyone else decided to screw up, I got punished right alongside them. If their grades were too low, then I lost personal time to help them study. If their fitness scores were subpar, then I trained with them after my training cycle was over. Marksmanship, piloting, repair, you name it and I did it for both myself and whoever the lowest ranked in the class was. In the end, I graduated fourth. I'm sure the only reason I didn't get first was because I was so busy helping others that I couldn't study on my own low points enough.

The day before graduation, the instructor who thought she was my own personal interrogation and torture droid, surprised me. She called for me to suit up and meet her in the hangar. We went through the normal pre-flight routines on a TIE fighter, which I knew by heart, and then we got inside. She told me to take the pilot's seat and instructed me to take off.

I loved piloting my family's airspeeders when my mom or dad let me have the controls, but this was the first time I had ever flown an actual non-simulated starfighter. Sure it wasn't solo, and the instructor was right behind me the entire time, but it was amazing. She let me take it out of the atmosphere and even engage the lasers to target some bits of debris around the planet. It was only an hour, but it was the best hour of my life at that point.

The next day was graduation and it was nothing but standing in formation in full uniform while being bored. I was hot, uncomfortable, and so excited that I actually forgot to use the fresher before the ceremony began. However, I controlled myself while waiting for my name and which Imperial Academy I would be attending. My highest scores were flight, second was repairs. I'm just thankful that my roommate was a math whiz or I probably would have failed into the Stormtrooper Corps.

I was lost in my own personal thrill of having flown for real the day before, and the need to empty my bladder, that I nearly missed the best news of my life. I was assigned to the Corellia Imperial Academy! It was the third best Academy for flight behind the Coruscant and Kuati, but was known to produce some of the best Elite Flight pilots in the entire Empire! Not to mention it was my grandpa's homeworld!

That's when the best day of my life became the worst. After the ceremony, we were allowed to visit with our families for a few hours before reporting to the shuttles. I didn't even know mine was there until I heard my mother's voice as I exited one of the temporary fresher stations set up for the event. I hugged her and saw my father stalking behind her. He looked like someone told him the company shares took a hit.

We went to a local upscale cantina for lunch before my shuttle left for Corellia. My mother did most of the talking; telling me what I missed over the last two years away from Ukio. My father was silent the entire time. They both walked with me to my room, to collect my gear, and then the shuttle pad. That's where my father said his last words to me.

"You just don't have your priorities straight." He then turned and walked away. My mother hugged me with a sad smile, kissed my forehead, and followed him.

My time in the Imperial Academy went by quickly. The classes were challenging in just the ways I liked them. The off-time in Coronet City was fun and far different from anything I was used to on an agro-planet. The Corellian ladies were even more fun and different. However, a gentleman never kisses and tells. I'm a pilot, not a gentleman, so I told my roommates everything that happened. The only other person who had any idea was the medical officer after this one Twi'lek dancer and I hooked up, but that's another more embarrassing story.

I was tapped for Elite Flight as I had predicted, though my roommates kept telling me that I'd be better in a Command slot. Not in a Hutt's eye. I'd either fly out of the Academy or walk. Though, any position would have been great.

I didn't graduate at the top of my class. Technically, I tied for seventh place. However, I had some of the highest mission scores of anyone in the rest of the Elite Flight program. I even set a new record in one of the live-fire missions. I think it was because of my high mission scores that my first assignment was to an Imperial Star Destroyer, unlike everyone else whose first post is some planetary or station duty. Heck, my roommate ended up lucking out to be a Garrison pilot on some tropical planet called Scarif.

The ISD _Despot_ was huge. The entire thing had the same floor space as the entire Imperial Academy Complex on Corellia. Sure, I was still sharing a room with three other people, but that's the life of a newly commissioned Flight Officer in the Imperial Starfighter Corps. My deck assignments were pretty small, since pilots were generally kept within running distance of the launch deck.

I admit that I got lost on my way to Pilot Country on my first day. The deck officer told me to turn left at the main corridor, which I did, and ended up wandered into a Stormtrooper bay. The troopers had a bit of a joke at my expense, but it was nothing next to the jokes I got from my new squadron. It's not every day that a rookie pilot is hand-delivered to their squadron commander by a four-man stormtrooper escort. Jerks.

My flight schedule was fairly standard for what I was trained for. I flew about a patrol a day, but I wasn't even aboard for a month before we received our first mission orders. We were supposed to rendezvous with the Sector Fleet lead by the _Sovereign_ , Grand Moff Tarkin's command ship from which he governed the entire Outer Rim Territories.

I admit that I wasn't really paying too much attention in the briefing. It was Empire Day, and the Wing Commander promised a party in the Pilot Rec room with some actual alcohol (normally a major contraband item on a Star Destroyer), but the Captain made some concessions for off-duty personnel on important occasions. The truth is that I was a little hungover from a pre-party celebration a few of us had the previous night (thanks to more contraband that the Captain didn't know about). However, I got enough of the briefing to do my job. It was just a babysitting run, after all. I manually raised my oxygen levels a little to make sure I was clear-headed before launch.

I found myself escorting a pair of TIE Bombers to put down a Rebel Cell on some planet. I didn't know the details, but the cell was operating out of a few of the major cities and was causing rebellion over the entire system. We weren't expecting any resistance, but still had to fly escort just in case. It wasn't anything I hadn't trained for a million times in the simulator. However, there was something strange about this mission that I couldn't really put my finger on until we broke through the light cloud cover.

We were flying over the Therim Equatorial Basin of Ukio on a direct path for the Northern Irrigation Canal. We were less than a hundred kilometers from my home. My head cleared immediately as I pulled up the navigational charts and saw what our target was. Part of my mind panicked and went numb at the same time, but my discipline overrode my need to stop what I knew was going to happen.

I saw the agro-hub; saw that my father's personal speeder was there alongside my mother's and a few of those belonging to the senior staff. My muscles locked as I saw the proton bombs drop from under the TIE Bombers. I couldn't speak as their energized glow burned into my memory. A single tear rolled down my cheek as they impacted. The fireball caused a grunting sound to escape my throat as it closed so tightly that I thought I would choke.

We continued on toward Sashasa, the capital, where both bombers unloaded on what I knew to be simple grain storage buildings. That's when my targeting alert system sounded and I juked the stick right, narrowly avoiding the line of shots from a point defense laser. I looped around and came in to take out what should have been a religious calling the tower for the locals. The green beams of coherent light tracked up the side of the minaret, punching holes in the ornately carved stonework before impacting the turret. I passed it before the fireball fully formed.

That's when the recall order was sounded along with an order that turned my blood to ice. I heard the precise Coruscani accent of Grand Moff Wilhuff Tarkin, governor of the Outer Rim Territories and rumored third in line of the Imperial Throne, declaring a Base Delta Zero. I docked just as the turbolasers began firing.

It took only three hours with the number of ships in the Sector Fleet, but it was broadcast across every view screen. In the end, the atmosphere was burned away, the land was turned molten, and the seas were black with the ash of what used to be a planet covered in agricultural blocks. The planet I was born on, my homeworld, was dead at the hands of MY Empire.

I got so drunk at the Empire Day party that I don't even remember making it back to my bunk, let alone making it to the head to throw up, showering, changing out of my uniform, or anything else until my next duty shift two days later. However, when the hangover wore off and I sobered up, I knew what I had to do.

It took me a couple weeks to finalize my plans, but it wasn't all that difficult. I only needed to shift my flight schedule with another one of the pilots who typically made liberty runs to the various planets we were in orbit over during our patrol. I disgorged the passengers, lifted off as normal, and jumped midway to the ship. They didn't even realize anything was wrong until I was already in hyperspace. After that, it was easy work to reprogram the transponder to one I fabricated in the maintenance shop.

I ended up at a planet not too far from Lothal called Nixus where I arranged to sell the shuttle for a large amount of credits to some smooth-talking gambler. I didn't ask what he wanted an Imperial shuttle for and he didn't ask how I had one in my possession. Though, he did offer me a change of clothes and pointed me to someone who could make me a fake identi-card, for five percent off his original offer.

Most of the credits went to me hopping from one planet to another. I learned that I was wanted as a deserter and for theft of Imperial Military property, but there was no bounty. That still kept me on edge when I reached a new starport. I knew Imperial Intelligence wouldn't be actively looking for me, but I was guaranteed a cell or a blaster bolt if they did catch me. Their droids probed most of the disgorging passengers, so I took to wearing a hood with my jacket.

That's when I ended up at the starport cantina on Alderaan. It was probably closer to the core than I should have been, but the Intel types wouldn't expect me laying low on a core world. Also, I remembered from Corellia that most of the core world security types had no love for the Empire or Imperial troops. My hope was that I could find a transport to serve on, maybe even get picked up by a mercenary unit. I definitely wasn't expecting what I did find, though.

The first thing I noticed in the cantina was the seven pilots sitting in a corner booth. They weren't wearing their flight suits, but I could still identify them as pilots. They picked up on me, too. It's a pilot thing; the way you sit, the way your eyes scan, the way you grab your drink. It would take me too long to explain.

One of them came up to me at the bar to refresh her drink. I knew it was just to start up a conversation, though. The seat she vacated had a half-full glass sitting on the table. But, who was I to ignore a pretty woman who wanted to talk? This is especially true if the pretty woman was also a pilot and probably extending an offer for a piloting job.

The conversation was light, at first. We talked about flying, certain maneuvers, and general questions that I knew were only to prove that I was actually a pilot. That's when she brought up politics and the Empire. I told her that I didn't want to talk about it, but she pushed. So, I told her that I saw more than I should have. She pushed a little more, but then her eyes widened before I could politely disengage from the conversation.

I followed her gaze to the door and saw an ISB agent flanked by two Stormtroopers standing in the main entrance. I opened my mouth to say something and she pulled me into a fully docked lip lock. As far as kisses went, this one was a little more urgent than I preferred. Then again, when a blonde's tongue is wrestling with yours for dominance, you really shouldn't complain. Her drink was rather fruity, by the way.

The ISB team left and she finally came up for air. It took me a couple of seconds to form a coherent thought before we both said, "Thanks, they were after me." That opened a whole new conversation between the both of us that was cut short by the rest of her team. They 'invited' me back to their hangar to finish the conversation, one that I felt I couldn't get out of thanks to a not-too-concealed blaster in my side hidden under a flight jacket.

Long story short, they were Rebel pilots. I told them my story, to include the Base Delta Zero on Ukio, and they offered me a job. It's not every day you get offered to fly against the people that trained you and then destroyed your entire planet. Needless to say, I accepted.

The next week involved background checks, interrogations, and a great deal of time waiting in a private room aboard some kind of ship. It wasn't a cell, but I was still locked in. I got three actual meals a day and had my own fresher, so I really couldn't complain. The blonde visited me a couple of times with some holovids. She said that I was under constant surveillance just in case, but it didn't stop her from practicing what we began with less urgency than in the cantina. That's when things took a turn for the weird.

Everyone I had met so far was wearing uniforms. They weren't from any military I was familiar with, probably a planetary militia, but they were still uniforms. The only exception was my final visitor. She was a rather lovely Togruta woman who wore something wholly different from the rest of the crew. There was some armor to her outfit, but it was most definitely civilian wear of a style I had never seen before. It included a couple of free-hanging pieces of equipment that looked like vibroblade hilts without the blades attached. I guessed she couldn't carry the actual blades on the ship for safety reasons.

She didn't really interrogate me, as much as we just held a normal conversation. I felt a strange pressure in the back of my head the entire time, though. It was the same pressure I remembered from meeting with the 'special projects' recruiter at the Youth Academy close to six years prior. It was the same situation, non-military clothing in a not-interrogation. This time, the woman was giving off a feeling of peace rather than a feeling of I'm-going-to-play-with-you-until-you-die-and-then-I-might-play-with-you-some-more like that female did. Though, it would have been more fun if this one flirted like the other.

After the not-interrogation, I was issued a red flight suit, black vest, boots, gloves, chest box, and helmet. I was then shoved aboard a shuttle to the middle of nowhere with a group of other people. The helmet was just plain white, so I used a spray-pen I found in the maintenance box on the shuttle to paint in the rough shape of my family crest. It brightened the helmet up a little.

During the trip, I also began this log. It was mostly out of boredom, but the woman I first met in the bar told me it would help to alleviate some stress. She said she'd show me some other ways to alleviate stress if I got past the security checks. However, that's about where this log is going to end. One of the joys of being a pilot is that I need to fly. The signal just blinked that I'm needed back in the cockpit for co-pilot duty. I have to make sure this group of technicians gets to where the heck we're all going.


	2. Entry 002

Entry 002: It's been a week...

When I first arrived, I knew that I didn't fit in. I stood a little straighter than the other crew. I walked a little faster than the other crew. I stood at attention when speaking to officers and kept my Imperial bearing while in uniform. Everyone knows that I'm a former Imperial, and that makes it even worse when trying to fit in. The only reason I was in at all was because of what happened during my first time at the stick, but I'm getting a little ahead of myself.

I'm stationed aboard the _Phoenix Home_ , an old Republic-era Kuat Drive Yards _Pelta_ -class Medical Frigate that was refitted by the Rebels into a command ship and light carrier. It's not really that bad of a ship, but definitely isn't a Star Destroyer. The one saving grace is that the Rebels kept one of the twelve medical bays fully active, making it equal to a Star Destroyer in that respect.

Commander Jun Sato is a good man. He gave me my in-brief when I first came on board. What I got was more of a job interview, though. He was very calm, but had to tell me to relax about five times. He only brought up my Imperial service once when he asked which Academy I attended. He seemed genuinely impressed when I told him it was the Corellian Academy.

Phoenix Leader didn't trust me, and told me as much when Commander Sato handed me off to him. He took me down to the launch bay and showed me the fighter I was assigned. He was almost relieved to hand me off to my fighter's mechanic when he saw her. What he did tell me was that my assigned callsign was Phoenix Twelve and I was assigned to Cresh Group.

My tech's name was Serim. The first impression was pretty good, all things considered: a nice shapely butt because she was bending over into the cockpit of the fighter. The upper part of her was cute, too. She was a Mirialan with olive skin and the brightest blue eyes I have ever seen. She even had a set of very interesting tattoos along her cheeks.

She introduced me to the fighter. It was a Kuat Engineering Systems RZ-1 A-Wing starfighter. It was 2.4 meters longer than a TIE, but the cockpit was claustrophobic and barely had enough room for me. It had an extra 100 km/h on the TIE and sported a pair of concussion missile launchers. It also sported shields and a hyperdrive. The downside was the compact frame meant it couldn't take as much damage as other ships.

I ended up helping Serim put the laser cannon back together and then she showed me how to tune up the hyperdrive. She was taught how to fix ships by her mom who was a separatist fighter technician during the war. She also got my life story out of me. She wasn't even taken aback when I told her that I defected from the Imperial military. She said that I knew mechanics, so I was good in her book. That's when she took me to meet the rest of my group.

Cresh group, the third element of Phoenix Squadron, all shared a berth. Four bunks, four lockers, a holonet terminal, a refresher, and it's all located midway between the flight deck, the mess, and right across from the simulator bay. I got the bottom right bunk and the furthest locker from the door.

Phoenix Nine was the lead element in our group. She was a human named Cari and was a former Imperial like me. She ended up jumping ship about a year ago for some of the same reasons I did, but it involved being lead in a Bomber group that took out a hospital ship. She told me that she expected me to follow her orders immediately, which I didn't have a problem with. Then again, it wasn't difficult for me to do because of her clipped Coruscani accent.

Ten was really quiet when I walked in, until I opened my locker. I wasn't even aware that self-inflating dolls came in Wookiee. He had the bunk over mine. I know this because he rolled out of it from laughing so hard. I laughed along with the rest of them as I popped it and tossed it in the trash. He had an unruly mess of blond hair that seemed to be perpetually covering his eyes. He said his name was Ricket.

Eleven was quiet, never even moving from his bunk and not even chuckling at the Wookiee doll. He was staring at me like a tophcat at a chorta. It wouldn't have been so bad if it wasn't for the fact that he was spinning an obviously active vibroblade between his fingers. He had a fair bit of ion scarring on the side of his face and his left eye was cybernetic. Ricket said that his name was Gret.

We spent the rest of the day in the simulators where I was learning the intricacies of the A-Wing starfighter. The most difficult thing was learning how to use the shield controls. The hyperdrive was much easier; literally select a destination and pull a lever, pushing it back when the indicator light came on. The rest of the systems were handled by the droid brain.

In the end, I had Ricket almost gushing over how well I flew. Cari actually smiled at his antics and I heard Gret grumble something approvingly. We went to the mess afterwards and I got more than my fair share of sidelong glances. I'm not sure if it was because I was the new guy or because I was a former Imp.

The next morning, I had my first patrol. I'd call it uneventful, but that would be giving it credit. The third day was the same. Unfortunately, the fourth day ended up being a little more active. Cresh was on alert 5 while Besh was on patrol. When the alert sounded, I was helping Serim recalibrate the starboard pivot mount for the laser.

I was last out the gate. The moment I hit vacuum, I saw that the alert wasn't just a drill. The fleet was three Alderaan Cruisers and the Command Cruiser. However, they were all under attack by a group of four Imperial Light Cruisers. Space was full of the eight A-Wings and eleven of the twelve TIE Fighters they carried.

I pulled in beside Eleven as we went for one of the TIE flights. I zeroed in on the fighter to the left and he took the right. Both went up before they could even react to their threat indicators. However, that also drew the attention of one of the cruisers. We both had to break to avoid shots from one of the quad laser turrets.

I heard Commander Sato over the comms informing the fighters that the fleet was preparing to jump. He wanted us to keep the TIEs busy until the fleet was away. Well, that wasn't much of a problem. The TIEs were pretty much ignoring the capital ships now.

I nosed over and let a series of shots fly toward the bridge of the cruiser that fired on me. I knew it would only make pretty lights across the bridge deflectors, but it would also… Then I got a quick idea. An idea that I knew the Imperials would fall for because of their standard protocols.

I switched over to an open frequency and acknowledged to "Commander Ricket" the order to focus concussion missile fire on the bridges of the cruisers. Commander Sato was pissed for my making an unsecure broadcast, but changed his tune when the cruisers pulled in rather than angled for shots at the fleet.

I turned and let my targeting computer lock onto the bridge of another cruiser and began an attack run. I knew that none of the fighters had missiles, due to the expenses, but the Imperials didn't. The cruiser began a roll of its own to pull the bridge out of my target, but also lost turbolaser lock on one of the blockade runners.

I pulled around and caught a TIE in my crosshairs momentarily, releasing lasers that punched through the rear viewport. I saw a brief flash of light on the wings from the front and the TIE just kept drifting forward through space, the cockpit gutted from my blast.

That's when I heard another pilot yelling for help. I looked around and saw that it was one of the green fighters from Besh. She didn't have a wingman, but Eleven turned toward her. I kept on his wing even as the TIE vaporized the A-Wing with a series of shots that ate through the shields and engines. Eleven blasted its right wing strut off and it cartwheeled straight into one of the cruisers. I took care of his wingman.

That's when my display flashed. The capital ships jumped to lightspeed. Nine ordered us to form up and I did. Rather than make our own escape, I got a request to slave my target lock to Nine. The lock-on tone rang through the helmet speakers the moment I acknowledged the request. At the same time, the cruiser rolled and banked to avoid a shot to the bridge. In its haste, it collided with another ship.

I let out a bark of laughter as the red hyperspace indicator lit in the cockpit. I pulled the lever and saw the stars fade into the azure kaleidoscope of lightspeed. I knew it wouldn't be more than superficial damage, but it would be enough to get that commander a major demotion.

I got a pretty severe dressing down by Lieutenant Cari when I landed. That was followed up by an even worse dressing down by Phoenix One when he finally got aboard. I was then marched to the bridge where I got a level three dressing down by Commander Sato.

It was then that Commander Sato nodded to the XO, who pulled out a datapad and began reading off what at first sounded like a courts martial, until I realized the wording was a commendation. Yup, not only was I given a triple-dressing down, but I was also promoted to Flight Officer from just Pilot.

When I finally got back to pilot country, I got a number of slaps on the back for my quick thinking. This included an offered drink from a couple different flasks. It was a bit of a party, both congratulatory and memorial for the pilots we lost. I was able to sneak out early and went back to the flight bay.

I needed to finish the calibration on my laser's hardware and was soon joined by Serim. She didn't say anything as she took apart one of the shield projector plates on the other side of the fighter. Though, I did have a flask on the wing when I came up from under the cannon assembly.

This was definitely one hell of a week.


	3. Entry 003

Entry 003: Every military is the same…

It doesn't matter what military you are with, everything is the same. The uniforms are different. The training is different. The accents are different. However, that's all just the window dressing for the same sets of routines and practices. How you spend your days are the same, regardless of whether you are an Imperial, Rebel, or all points in between.

There was a bit of a shifting in the roster at the beginning of the week. Cresh group is the _newbie_ group used for training, except for Phoenix Nine (third in command of the Squadron). Since Besh was down two pilots from the last mission, Phoenix Five and Six, both Ricket and Gret were transferred to Besh with Gret getting a promotion to Flight Lieutenant. We, on the other hand, got two new pilots and fighters into Cresh.

My callsign was relisted as Phoenix Ten and I became the impromptu second stick of the group. Ceri didn't mind this fact because she said I showed some good initiative and it was her that suggested Gret take on first stick of Besh. After some simulator practice, we both evened out to each other's flying style. By the end of the week, we were both completely synched up on the stick. I'm guessing it's because we were both Imperial trained, which actually does mean something (regardless of what Commander Sato believes).

Our two _newbies_ both arrived on the same ship. If you don't know Gungan, a _newbie_ is a newcomer to the swamps or someone out of their element. That definitely described both of the fresh meat in Cresh Group. Don't forget that this is coming from a guy who has been in the Rebels for a total of about two weeks.

Phoenix Eleven was a girl from Naboo. I can't even call her a woman because she looks all of fifteen years old. I later found out that she's just a year younger than I am. Her name is Nina Azar. She's good on the stick, but says she's a better shot than she is a pilot. After the first time in the simulator, I believe her. She even came close to my accuracy score, but Phoenix Nine told her that she needs to be in the simulator an additional hour every day until she can fly the simulator proving ground in under two minutes… without crashing.

Phoenix Twelve was from Alderaan, his name is Blaine. He had the exact opposite problem of Nina. He could outfly everyone in the squadron. Unfortunately, he couldn't hit bantha poodoo (or the bantha for that matter). He said that he was a performer in a flying circus, but wanted to do more to help than just fly fancily around. Well, Nine told him that he was with Nina for that extra hour learning how to shoot as well as he could fly and teaching her to fly as well as she could shoot.

Other than the roster change, nothing else changed. We were still flying daily patrols, sitting in the briefing room pulling daily alert, doing daily maintenance, doing daily training, and recreating in the same precise manner as I was used to in the Empire, except we didn't have to shine our boots unless we wanted to. Some people can lose themselves in a routine, but I definitely am not one of them. Routines make you sloppy, but I had a good support network to keep myself busy.

During patrols, we'd take turns reading tactics and intel reports out loud over our Group comms. We'd also go over Rebel standard operating procedures, rules and regs, and any other book-learning that we could get our hands on. Sometimes, we'd even tap into the Imperial holonet feed and make fun of the propaganda.

Maintenance was actually more relaxing than I thought it would be. Serim declared me 'competent' enough to work on the fighter without her direct supervision. We began talking while we worked, which was a refreshing change from the silence she used to give me. One of the best things about my fighter was the ability to adjust the controls to better fit my flying style. TIEs have to be identical with no pilot having an assigned fighter unless they were an ace, but this fighter was my own.

Besides flying every day, we also spent an hour in the simulator. It was mostly to keep our combat reflexes sharp, but also to practice new moves and tactics. Sometimes we would fly together, other times we would fly head to head, and still other times we'd have a faceoff to see who was the last alive. It would be random, but mostly it was either Nine or myself.

Mandatory recreation time was usually spent in the Day Room, the Pilot's Mess, or the bunks. Though, I did meet Phoenix Three (the blonde from the bar) in one of the supply rooms for a little "mandatory recreation" of our own a few times. That definitely helped pass the time. Otherwise, we told stories from previous missions, stories of our past, or just tall tales (unless Ricket actually scored with an Aqualish, which I don't want to think about).

Everything was the same until the end of the week, that is. I'd heard some rumors that we were partnering with a smuggler crew that went by the codename The Spectres. I didn't think anything of it, but I assumed they were the ones that were supposed to supply us. I mean, the Empire has their supply ships, why not use smuggling ships for the Rebellion. I just hadn't actually seen any of them until this week.

The captain was a beautiful Twi'lek woman with green skin and an orange coverall that snugged in all the right spots. Her first officer was a human man who looked like he stepped out of a holodrama about smugglers. They were closely followed by an old C1-series astromech that I only remembered from some of the far older variants that were used as spare parts for the agrohub repair droids, but this one had two different leg struts and a bit of an attitude problem.

The rest of the crew wasn't much better, but they hung back a bit. There was a big, purple alien that I could smell from the door to Pilot Country. There was a kid with him that had the strangest looking blaster hanging on his belt from a clip. However, I was instantly smitten with the final member of their crew.

I couldn't tell her age, but she couldn't have been in her twenties. What stood out, and drew my attention the most, was the fact that she was decked out in Mandalorian armor with a pair of Mandalorian pistols on her hips and a Mandalorian helmet on her head. I've always been interested in the Mandalorians since reading about Fenn Rau during the Clone Wars, and studying some of his tactics at Corellia. Her armor was also brightly colored and looked hand painted.

Three ended up smacking me upside the back of the head as she walked by. She told me to take a picture if I was going to stare so long. This got a chuckle out of the Mando as she took her helmet off and gave me an appraising glance. I'm not sure if I lived up to her expectation or not, because she just flipped her blue hair out of her eyes and followed the rest of her crew.

They came on board and the captain spoke immediately with Commander Sato. Not long after, Aurek Group was called into the briefing room with the smugglers. Before they entered the room, the kid and first mate both looked at me at the same time. It was a little strange, but they were probably not used to being onboard a ship and didn't realize they were being watched.

The schedules were shifted around slightly, since Aurek was going out on some kind of mission with the smugglers. We were doing four shifts of two until Aurek returned home. Unfortunately, both Five and Nine said that meant an extra hour of sims. I drew the unlucky straw and lost the rest of my recreation time to being first flight with Nine.

While I was out, I got a good look at their ship. My sensors read it as the _Ghost_. It was a modified VCX-100 light freighter with a VCX-series auxiliary starfighter docked in the rear. It was beat up, blast-scarred, scorched, and definitely needed a new coat of paint, but it also looked well taken care of.

Aurek group and the _Ghost_ launched before my patrol was finished. I ended my patrol, sat through another hour of combat sims with Nine. She wanted to see who could take out more TIEs before being destroyed with infinite-spawning waves. She won three of the five times.

I woke up the next morning just about the same time Aurek and the smugglers returned from their mission. They secured fuel and supplies from an Imperial convoy and the crew was busy getting it ready for transfer to the fleet. Unfortunately, the foodstuff was just nutrient paste. Then again, it was better than starvation, but just barely. There was also a full shipment of Concussion Missiles, but I was told those would be going to the Group Leaders unless the mission required them.

Other than that, it was just a normal week in the Rebellion.


	4. Entry 004

Entry 004: Downtime…

It's more of the proverbial same. Same patrols, same maintenance, same simulators, and same bland food paste that I thought I escaped from when I left the Empire… or is it left when I escaped the Empire? Well, either way, it still tastes like unflavored dental cleanser with just a hint of fungal aftertaste.

There were three things that came in the supply shipment that I was grateful for. The first was a set of feedback exercisers that I have been using regularly on my off-time. The second was a refill of beard suppressant, which was better received than the food paste (and probably tasted better, too). There was also a small supply of holomags that helped to pass the time. It was better than the year-old copy of Hot Ships we had floating around the rec room.

I didn't really know how much muscle mass I was losing until the morning after I began using the feedback exerciser. TIE's don't have many systems, but they do have a repulse gravity system built into their floor panel. Thanks to the compact aspect of the A-Wing, gravity was never a priority. It relies on the inertial dampener to redirect acceleration into a general feeling of down. That plays hell on the muscles, but thankfully the ration paste has a bone density element to it so I don't have to worry about the skeletal problems from low-G.

I woke up the day after my first workout feeling like my first run through the Corellian Academy Double-Grav Grinder Course. I set the controls for level 2 for a 30 minute session, when I used to do level 5 for an hour at the Academy. I spoke to the med droid about it, and he gave me a protein supplement and suggested that I gradually increase from level 1. Don't call me a wuss, either; it's not a good thing for combat pilots to be stiff.

Earlier this week, I saw the Togruta woman again when her fighter docked with _Phoenix Home_. I had no idea she was a pilot. She was still wearing that same armor-like suit of non-uniform and didn't even fly with a helmet. She saw me on the flight deck, helping Phoenix Three with her sensor calibration, and walked over.

Her fighter was an A-Wing with a custom paintjob. It was crimson with white detailing. It was a white long triangle down the center with a star right in the front of the cockpit. There were white wings or moons beside it on the edges of the wings. Finally, the cockpit struts were white, as well. It looked really familiar, like from a holovid I saw some time ago, but I couldn't recognize it.

She asked if I was fitting in well and how I liked my new home. I answered truthfully, just like before, but didn't notice the look that Three was giving me. The Togruta smiled and said that we'd speak later. I told her that I looked forward to it and went back to what I was doing… just in time to get a dirty rag thrown at the back of my head.

Three told me that she didn't like me looking at other women, with a laugh and punch to the shoulder. I asked her if she was jealous and she asked me if I knew who that woman was. I shrugged and said that she was some kind of officer. Three called me cute but brainless, and told me that she was Ahsoka Tano, a Clone Wars hero. I thought she was just pulling my leg, because that means that Ahsoka would have had to be fighting when she was a teenager. I mean, she didn't look much older than thirty if I'd had to guess.

I was given a bit more of a history lesson regarding the "non-uniformed" personnel around the ship. I learned that the crew of the _Ghost_ was unofficial members of Phoenix Squadron and that Captain Syndula was considered an Operation Head when the _Ghost_ flew with us. I also learned that Ahsoka actually organized the fleet and all arrangements for new pilots when through her.

Ahsoka and I did speak later. She came to Pilot Country and invited me to one of the few tables not occupied by either Sabaac or Dejarik. She kept the conversation light at first, mostly focusing on my experiences with the A-Wing. The conversation turned to my experiences through the different academies. She was quite interested in the indoctrination.

When the time seemed right, I asked her about her part in the Clone Wars. She seemed both surprised and saddened that I brought it up. She looked me in the eyes and told me that she was a Commander. I gave her a disarming smile and told her that if she had a cloned sister or two, I'd be happy if she could introduce us. Her clouded look disappeared and she rolled her eyes with a half-muttered "boys" under her breath. She turned suddenly serious and asked me what I knew about the Clone Wars.

I told her of the history courses in the Academy, and my love of the holodramas (to include a couple bootleg ones I got from workers in the hub). Then she asked me what I knew about the Jedi involvement. I gave her the line I was told time and again in the Academy, that the Jedi were the ones who began the war and the Emperor and his clone army ended it. She smiled and asked if I believed it. I simply told her that the winner writes the history books. She gave me a smile, rose from the table and began to walk away. She stopped, turned and said something that stuck with me all week long, "yes he did, but we will be rewriting them with the truth soon enough."

The crew of the _Ghost_ left on some mission not long after that. They didn't take their ship, though. They took Star Commuter 2000 shuttle that was in the overhead maintenance area of the hangar. Scuttlebutt is that they were picking up some high-ranking diplomat that was trying to defect. One of Three's friends was on the bridge and overheard a message their droid relayed from their ship, but wasn't paying too much attention. I guess it's better than stealing an Imperial troop shuttle to get away.

I found out something else that was really interesting, too. Apparently, the first officer of the _Ghost_ is a Jedi! I couldn't believe it, A Jedi is on the same ship as me. Not only is he a Jedi, but the kid on the crew is his apprentice! Well, the term Three used was Pady-won, whatever that means. Two Jedi on the same ship with a Mandalorian; I could see why they're so important around the fleet. As if that wasn't enough, the pilot was the daughter of some Rebel commander from Ryloth, but Three didn't know too much about it, being from Kuat and all.

That's about all I can really tell you about this week. I'm not going to hope things get more interesting, because it would probably come back to bite me in the seat. Though, I do have one more thing to report.

Eleven and Twelve are doing much better. Eleven was able to complete the entirety of the simulator course without running into any of the obstacle rings and Twelve was able to complete the entirety of the course while taking out about half of the turrets on the rings. They are working together quite well, to the point that I caught them making out in the showers. I had to admonish them about making out in the crew areas and suggested they try a maintenance locker…

I was impressed the next day when they took my advice. However, they spoiled the mood between Three and I when they opened the door right in the middle of our… physical training session… After some initial embarrassment and a little staring on both of their parts (we were right in the middle of the training), I told them both something I forgot to before: Be sure to knock to make sure the maintenance locker is unoccupied or not otherwise being used for "training" purposes.


	5. Entry 005

Entry 005: They're all gone...

I'm the last member of Phoenix Squadron. All of my comrades, all of my friends, are all gone. That pilot single-handedly wiped out my entire squadron and destroyed our command ship. Twenty-six out of the nine hundred crew were all that escaped.

How could one pilot have done all that, and what was that ship he was in? It was a TIE Fighter, but it wasn't like anything I've ever seen before. Wait. No. This isn't how I should start this. It will probably be looked at by an official inquiry or whatever the Rebels do. I need to take it in order of events.

It was routine as normal for the squadron. The groups were ordered to dock with each of the Corvettes in the fleet to ensure the fighters locked correctly and the Blockade Runners didn't have an issue with their docking collars. Not long after I jumped ship from the Empire, the fleet engaged in an attack run against a number of Star Destroyers around Mustafar. I heard that Tarkin's ship, the _Soverign_ , was destroyed in the action. I also heard that the crew of the _Ghost_ was responsible, so I believed it.

After the mission, Commander Sato decided to use the docking collars for fighters on the port, starboard, and lower airlocks of the corvettes. If nothing else, it would give a bit of support to long range missions. It would also make the lives of the pilots better for the longer hyperspace transit times around Lothal Sector.

One of the perks to the assignment was that Nine and I both got ourselves a cup of actual homebrew caf from the captain of the _Emancipator_ , and I'm not talking about that carbon frozen stuff, either. One of the perks of being Fleet XO is that she had an actual caf plant in her quarters that she harvested and shared with her officers once every season. I hadn't had any actual caf since just before I boarded the shuttle to Alderaan. I would say that we both savored it, but we only had fifteen minutes until the technicians told us the links were five-by-five and we had to move on to the next ship.

It wasn't just checking on the CR90s, either. We had to make sure that each of the fighters could be linked to a Corvette. With how compact the systems were in the A-Wings, one wrong shot could fry the hyperdrive motivator and we'd need to bug out while piggy-backing a capital ship.

Unfortunately, two of Besh's fighters had malfunctions when they tried to dock. Seven's entire shield assembly failed in a spectacular manner which ionized every system in his fighter. Five's cockpit display systems fried themselves to the point of needing to be completely replaced. Unfortunately, that made it necessary for Cresh to pull Besh's alert position for the rest of the day. It's not like we had anything else better to do, like sleep.

I was playing sabaac with Nina and Blaine in the Ready Room while Cari kicked her feet on the briefing podium half-watching the sensor feeds. It was quiet, Cari woke herself up with a snort every few minutes. Each of us card players would stack a one credit chip into the Idiot's Ante whenever she did it. It took some of the monotony away from the crushing boredom.

That's when a bright red blip resolved itself into real space at the edge of sensor range. The bridge pinged it and it turned out to be an Imperial _Sentinel_ -class landing craft. A moment later, the red blip turned blue and the identification codes showed it was the _Ghost's_ crew returning. That hand went to Twelve.

The next hand we played went to Eleven when the light impact of docking rocked through the vessel. Eleven dealt the cards and it took all of my military bearing not to break out in laughter. I was staring straight at an Idiot's Array while also realizing that the Rebels just scored an Imperial shuttle with their defector.

I was just about to drop the winning hand on the table when the alert claxon sounded. I grumbled about my luck and dropped my cards face down, hoping I'd be able to pick up where I left off after whatever spooked the bridge. Cari tossed me my helmet and we ran out onto the catwalks over the alert fighter staging. I was buckled in, engines hot, and out of the launch bay in less than a minute.

I formed up on Nine's wing as we dropped into position alongside Aurek who was on active patrol. My sensors pinged a single fighter coming in at Mark Three. I announced it over the comms and hit the scanner. It took a couple of seconds for the sensors to sort through the details.

It was definitely a TIE fighter from both the ball cockpit and solar array wings, but that's the only similarities it shared. It used the same wings as a Bomber, but the body extended back almost their entire length. It may have been some new scout variant that the Empire developed, but why would it have been flying solo on an attack vector toward the fleet. Oh, it also had shields.

Both flight groups opened fire when the TIE got within weapons range. The fight should have lasted all of five seconds with the eight to one odds, but it wasn't that easy. The pilot accelerated and rolled his ship left and right, totally dodging all of our blasts, before unleashing a volley that took out both Phoenix One and Two at the same time. He shot by us before we could reacquire.

I began pulling around as the TIE fired a couple shots at a blockade runner and then made a full strafing run on the command ship. By the time I was pulled around on Nine's wing, the fighter was already doubling back through the fleet. We were nowhere near him now. I was just glad that the shields held on _Phoenix Home_ , but he was definitely targeting the generator.

Three and Four fell in on his tail and began firing just as Nine and I got in position for our own attack run. That's when I saw him do the unthinkable. He baffled his ion engines and spun his fighter around to fire directly behind him, a stunt that should have ripped his ship apart with the inertial stress. Three was taken out immediately, followed soon after by four. It was so quick, that she didn't even scream over the comms. The pilot unbaffled his ship and it shot in the opposite direction from where he was going, throwing off the attack vector that Nine and I were on.

The TIE strafed _Phoenix Home_ again and struck the shield generator before continuing the length of the ship. My sensors showed that the shields were down and the ship was venting out of at least two holes in the superstructure. There was an internal explosion and the entire aft of the ship went red on my scopes. The hyperdrive was down as were the flight deck atmospheric shields. I saw a flailing form in space behind the ship for a moment before I refocused on the fighter.

The _Ghost_ called out that they were moving to engage and began a pursuit of the TIE. Captain Syndula ordered us to form up and focus fire. Nine and I were the only two fighters within range of the transport, with Eleven and Twelve having failed to find a good vector to launch their own strafing run. We formed up on the ship's wings and waited for a good window.

The nose gunner was already firing when the TIE began another attack run at the command ship. Our laser fire did something, at least, because the fighter hesitated momentarily and broke off. Unfortunately, he just retargeted us. He came around faster than any TIE should have been able to. Before I even realized where he was, Nine was vaporized and he was firing on the _Ghost_.

I looked over and saw his ship less than twenty meters off of my wing lining up an attack run on the transport and not even paying attention to me. That when I saw something that made my blood freeze. Inside the fighter, lit by the system's primary and the red flight lighting of the ship, was not a TIE pilot. Instead, I saw the angled helmet and black mask of the Emperor's Emissary. The second most powerful person in the entire Empire: Darth Vader.

I rolled off of his wing and tried to come back around behind him, but my sensors screamed out that space was getting a bit more crowded. Three Star Destroyers jumped in almost dead ahead. There was no way I was going toe-to-toe with one Star Destroyer, let alone three. But, they were still far enough away that they couldn't even target us.

I lined up for a shot on Vader's tail, but he rolled up and left. I wanted to squeeze the triggers until they snapped off under my fingers, but I couldn't. If I missed him, I would have been firing directly into the tail of the _Ghost_. I juked down, and he mirrored my movements. Rolled left and he did the same. There was nothing I could do to hit him without putting the transport at risk from friendly fire. How could one pilot anticipate every movement I made in order to line up directly with the ship he was attacking?

That's when I heard the order to abandon _Phoenix Home_ come over the main comm. I broke off my attack and turned to cover the escape pods. There was nothing I could have done to help without also putting the _Ghost_ at risk. I only counted three of the lifeboats coming out of the ship; only three, maximum capacity of twelve, for nine hundred crew.

I didn't know if there was anyone from Phoenix left, but at the moment I was the highest ranking officer in the squadron that I knew of. I ordered the squadron to form up and protect the pods. I didn't hear any acknowledgements and my scopes showed that I was the only friendly starfighter in the vicinity.

I pulled in close to the pods when I saw a secondary explosion and laser fire, followed by a ship shooting out from the launch bay. Someone else had survived! Their stick-work was sloppy at best, but they aimed for the direction of the Corvettes.

The escape pods docked with _Liberator_ and Commander Sato gave the order to jump to Safe Haven. I selected the destination from my astrogation computer, but it didn't list a system name. I was numb as I pulled the lever to enter hyperspace.

The only thing that kept me from being sick was the fact that I'd be in the cockpit with it for the next three hours according to the astrogation countdown. It was still too much time with nothing to do after watching my entire squadron destroyed around me by one lone starfighter, regardless of who the pilot was.

I checked in with the _Liberator_ , letting them know that I survived and then opened a line to the other fighter. I was surprised to see the green skin and hexagonal tattoos of Serim fill the comm display. She was finishing up her repairs on Five's cockpit when the deck shields failed. She was able to seal the canopy before the bay completely depressurized. She wasn't a pilot, so she just waited until things were over to get out and jump with the rest of the fleet.

She told me that Six and Eight were in their fighters waiting for clearance when the ship took the hits. The rack over six crushed the engine assemble when it fell. Eight, whose ship was in the rear of the flight bay, was bucked off the deck and slammed against the ceiling, shattering the canopy.

I had a lot of time to myself in the cockpit and it got me to thinking about the past. I was able to work the only reminder of my past out of my flight suit to look at it and hold it. It was a crystal that I wrapped some wire around to turn it into a pendant. It was silly, but it meant something to me. It meant hope.

When I was younger, after the Clone Wars ended and I was old enough to leave the Hub on my own, my parents forbade me from visiting only one area on the entire planet. Being a youth, that meant that I had to visit it. It turned out to be some burned out ruins, but they were modern.

I found out, after exploring them on several occasions, that it was the Jedi Agricorps settlement. It was a place for failed Jedi to continue serving the Republic. I explored every building, every drawer, and every nook and cranny. That's when I found my treasure.

I used to watch Jedi holodramas before they were outlawed by the Empire, and a couple afterwards that my parents didn't know about. That's how I was able to identify the lightsaber that I found. Well, it wasn't exactly a lightsaber; more like half of a lightsaber. It was cleanly sheered through the housing and all of the circuitry inside it. It was in the largest room and had been wedged under the bed built into the wall.

I took it home with me and spent the next month carefully taking it apart and studying every little piece that I could see. It was so intricate and the pieces fit together like they were part of a puzzle. As I pulled them out, they just refused to go back in together. They weren't even held in by any screws or anything; they just fit so perfectly together on a level I had never seen. At the heart, though, was the crystal.

It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. I've seen other crystals in my life, but this one was different. At first, it didn't refract any light through it, no matter what I tried, it remained perfectly clear. That made it special. So, I used some of my mother's jewelry wire (she didn't even know that I took any), to made it into a pendant.

At first, it constantly felt cold against my skin. I knew that was physically impossible, just like it not refracting any light. It was uncomfortable, but I never took it off. However, after about a year, it felt warmer. One day, I was looking at it again in the light, and it suddenly blinded me with the colors it began refracting. Suddenly, like I had pulled it from a blast shield into a targeting beam.

Even now, as I record this, it is refracting the azure light from hyperdrive into mournful colors around the cockpit. I've never taken it off, even in the Imperial Academy.

When I was younger, I had a babysitter that I only barely remember. She was a Twi'lek girl that I later found out was part of the Agricorps, I think she was sixteen. She used to tell me about something called the Force. It seems silly and magical, but it was so believable to a four year old. I still believe in it, but I'd never tell anyone about it. Because the Jedi were all declared traitors, and their religion was seen as seditious, I couldn't even look it up without being flagged by Imperial Intelligence. So, I have only the stories told to me by a girl whose name I don't even remember.

It's times like this that I remember the stories. It's times of loss and times when I need strength. I'm the last member of Phoenix Squadron. The others were either destroyed by Darth Vader in their fighters or died with _Phoenix Home_. Now, we're on our way to somewhere in the Outer Rim. They're all gone. All of them. Dead. The only thing left is the Force, whatever that is.


	6. Entry 006

Entry 006: Well That Escalated Quickly...

It took us three jumps to make it to Safe Haven, a total of thirteen hours in hyperspace. After the first leg of the trip, Serim docked with the _Liberator_. It took me close to an hour to talk her through docking procedures. She was able to fly the ship, but I doubt she had the skill to fight if it came to it. She probably couldn't even have done an atmospheric entry or landing. Even she admitted that she was only a tech and not a pilot. I was invited to dock, but I told them I needed to stay in space to run cover in case we came upon an Imperial patrol.

In the end, we came out of hyperspace in the Dantooine system. It was an Agroplanet, not unlike Ukio, but sported a pair of moons where Ukio had one. I had to put thoughts of my home out of my head because my scope was full of many different ships that seemed to take our presence personal. Most of them were old Republic refits, particularly Z-95 Headhunters and V-19 Torrent starfighters, but there were others that I didn't recognize. The fleet even sported an older Nebulon-B Frigate and a ship close to the size of a Star Destroyer. After a few moments, they tagged blue on my scanners and we were given permission to land.

The base was huge, big enough to comfortably land all five of the corvettes. I set down close by the _Liberator_ and was greeted by an assortment of technicians swarming all over my ship. I hadn't even adjusted to the planet's gravity when I heard the unmistakable whine of a transport overhead. Sure enough, the _Ghost_ set down opposite the CR90 from me.

I got to the Alderaan Cruiser's ground elevator at the same time as the crew of the _Ghost_. When I saw that Ahsoka was with them, it actually made me smile. I greeted them with a nod just as Commander Sato stepped onto the tarmac. He only said "follow me" and began walking toward what I assumed to be the command building.

Everyone was silent, except for the Mandalorian. She asked me if I was okay and what happened to the rest of the squadron. I looked her right in the T-visor as we walked, unsure if she could even see my eyes through the gold polarized visor and shook my head. She dropped back a couple of paces after that. Ahsoka took her place by my side, though, which gave me a little more strength than I thought I was capable of having.

Give me a starfighter and I can navigate a star system without a problem. Give me hallways and my boots, and… well, remember my first time on a Star Destroyer. All I knew is that we ended up in some kind of briefing room. It was about twice the size of the command deck aboard _Phoenix Home_ , but filled with twice the bodies and enough equipment to outfit a Star Destroyer's bridge.

The room was filled with uniforms, but there were four around the table that were not in uniform. Then again, they would have stood out even if they had been. The only one I recognized was the older gentleman, Viceroy and First Chairman of Alderaan, Bail Organa; I had seen him in my youth at the Hub during some ceremony or something. Beside him was a girl who I assumed was Alderaan's Senator and his daughter, Leia. There was also a regal looking woman with short red hair and blue eyes that was the center of attention, even though she was only standing to one side of the table. Finally there was a rather portly Mon Calamari with gray skin and what I assumed to be a perpetual sneer.

I stood silently as the 'adults' in the room talked, to include one of the officers with a rather shaggy gray beard and another that reminded me of any number of Imperial Intelligence Officers I had seen. The kid, Ezra, also chimed in a thing or two about some place called "Tarkintown" on Lothal, gaining a not-so-subtle glare from some of the older officers. In the end, the redhead looked up at me and asked if I had anything to add. I nodded and said that I got a good look at the pilot of the TIE and identified him as Darth Vader.

In the Imperial military, junior officers are supposed to defer any questions like that one to their flight leader or line commander. I thought the Rebels might have had a similar policy, though, because the entire room fell silent and all eyes that were around the table suddenly fell on me. I think the temperature in the room either rose or fell about ten degrees because I began to both sweat and get chills. I proceeded to explain how I knew it was Darth Vader and about what I witnessed the TIE doing, to include is maneuverability when compared to the A-Wings.

The Imperial-like officer, a General if I was reading his rank correctly, left the table and ordered me to follow him for a full debriefing. He took me to a room that looked more like a cell than a debriefing room. It had a cot, a table, and two chairs. The guard posted outside the room let me use the refresher and handed me a day-tube of nutrition paste. I took off my helmet and sat on the cot waiting for the debriefing officer.

I was awoken after about an hour by the first of such officers entering the room. For the next two days straight, nineteen hours a day, I was interrogated. I was questioned about everything I had ever done, both in the Rebellion and the Empire. It wasn't a debriefing; those let you rest a little and didn't try to trip you up over your statements.

My journal was taken, scanned, read aloud to me, analyzed, and I was made to explain every single detail of each of the five posts I had made in it to this point. They tried changing details and asking me to explain why I didn't have my facts straight. At one point, they brought in a medical droid to monitor me for lies.

Finally, I blew up. The officer questioning me was a human, but he looked more like a Gamorrean stuffed into a uniform sized for an Ugnaught. He was peering at me over thick-lens glasses and questioning me about my family and what I knew about the Rebel cell on Ukio that I helped to destroy, for the third time. I yelled that I had enough. I needed to rest, I needed to sleep, I needed to walk, and I needed to clear my head. I told him that if he wanted to stop me, he'd have to shoot me and that I'd most certainly shoot back. When he sputtered something about my not having a weapon, I just stared at him and asked if he was willing to bet his life on that.

I didn't even grab my helmet when I left. The guard outside of my room looked like I had hit him with a stun blast when I kicked the door to my cell open. It shocked him so much that he smacked his light gray helmet against the permacrete wall. He didn't stop me, even with the officer yelling that my debriefing wasn't over yet.

It took me a little time, but I finally made my way out of the base. A little searching and I found a series of speeder bikes that were unattended. I didn't care if they arrested me, but I had to clear my head. That meant acceleration and a lot of it.

I hopped on a speeder, picked a direction, elevated to about a dozen meters, and gunned the accelerator. After an hour of flying over fields and hills at maximum velocity in a direction that was away from the base, I finally came to a stop. I practically fell off of the bike and just sat beside it holding my knees as the sun slowly sank to the horizon.

The temperature was dipping into the uncomfortable zone and I knew it would probably get chilly during the night. Thankfully, the speeder bike's cargo compartment had a field kit in it. I set up the heat lamp and dug through to find some kind of rations. I was rewarded with a flask, instead. It wasn't nearly enough to get drunk, but was enough to at least relax. I downed half and tucked it under my vest.

It was night when I heard the engine in the distance. There were no lights, which meant the pilot was either crazy or stupid. It stopped about fifty meters from where I set up camp. I didn't even turn to see who it was when I heard the footsteps stop at the edge of the light. "Mind if I share your campsite," was all she asked. It was Ahsoka.

She set a sealed container down next to me and sat opposite the heat lamp. It was warm and I discovered it contained a rather thick cut of nerf-steak, tubers, and vegetables with a container inside that had some sweetened juice. I was going to offer her half before I saw she brought her own. We ate in silence until the insects announced the rise of both moons. I shared the last half of the flask with her.

After a while, she looked at me right in the eyes and asked, "Do you want to talk about it?" I didn't really want to, but I couldn't help myself. I spilled it all out. What I was feeling, why I was feeling it, Three, the squadron, Darth Vader, the Empire, the Hub, my parents, everything. At some point, I had started crying and she moved over to put an arm around my shoulder. I don't know how long I was talking, but by the time I was done, the moons were setting and there was a glow on the horizon.

I asked if she had ever lost anyone. She lowered her head and stared distantly into the heat-lamp. I didn't push, but I could tell she wanted to say something. She looked down and sighed. She took one of the tools that hung from her hip armor. She let it rest in her hand for a moment before thumbing the button on its side.

I've seen the Jedi in the holodramas use their laser swords before. The holorecordings didn't do them justice. It was brighter than I thought it would be, and unlike the dramatic ones, it was pure white. The hum was also louder. Then, it was over, and the hilt was clipped back on her belt.

We sat in silence for a while as the heat of the sun took over from the glow of the lamp. Then, she stood and offered me her hand. I accepted it and got to my feet. I packed up the camp while she walked back to her speeder and was finished as she glided it over to meet me. It took about three hours to get back, mostly because we weren't gunning our engines past the red-line like I had the previous day.

The only complaint upon my return was drinking the flask dry, but that was distant as Ahsoka was leading me back into the bowels of the command building. Rather than the debriefing cell, I was brought to a set of quarters where I cleaned up and changed into a clean uniform that was provided for me. I didn't even realize I had fallen asleep until I heard a knock at the door. It was Commander Sato.

He led me through the halls to a room a little larger than the one I had slept in. Neither of us said anything until the end, when he told me to be polite. The woman in white was standing behind a desk that was centered in the room. I could tell that she was some sort of leadership over the Rebellion from the two guards in opposite corners who eyed me suspiciously, but I didn't know what her rank was or even who she was. At least I didn't know her until she opened by introducing herself: Chancellor Mon Motha, Chief of State of the Civil Government of the Alliance to Restore the Republic.

She apologized for the heavy-handed way that General Draven had conducted my debriefing. She also said that I handled it appropriately, under the circumstances. Her smile was very charming, which was probably one of the reasons she was picked to run things. She asked if it was okay for her to debrief me, properly. I nodded and took the seat provided.

She told me that she read through my journal and asked me questions about it. One of the biggest was about Three. She asked me why I never referred to her by name. Well, her name was Yophi. She didn't want it written anywhere because she had a Death Mark from some Moff in the Anoat Sector who enjoyed hiring slicers. She didn't tell me the details, though, and I never asked.

In the end, Mon Mothma asked me what I wanted to do. I told her that I just wanted to fly, preferably in an A-Wing. She smiled at that, and told me that I would be getting my wish. I was told that I would remain part of Phoenix Squadron, but I would not be the new commander. I told her that I was glad because I didn't think I was ready for command yet. That made her smile again. I walked out of her office feeling better about the whole Rebellion thing than I had for the past week.

Serim caught up with me the next day and practically dragged me out of the base. She told me that we were going on a picnic and she would take the controls if I didn't. That at least half-motivated me to jump in the pilot's seat of the small landspeeder she procured for us. We were both quiet as I flew us out to the spot that Ahsoka and I had camped at.

I didn't even realize that she had lost her entire technical team when _Phoenix Home_ was destroyed. We talked about it, cried about it, ate in silence, and watched the sun set. We ended up in the back seat of the speeder not long after, under a thermal blanket. Nothing happened. We just held each other and watched the stars until we fell asleep. They seemed so peaceful.

The next morning, she told me that someone had found my helmet and it would be waiting for me in the cockpit of my fighter. I dropped her at the landing elevator of the _Liberator_ and returned the vehicle to the speeder pool. Got lost again as I made my way back to pilot country, but had a blue and white astromech lead me in the right direction. It was being perpetually followed by a protocol droid that wouldn't shut up, but was readily ignored.

On the way, I was summoned to the Briefing Room. Thankfully the astromech knew the way there, because I was more lost than normal. Commander Sato was there waiting for me with the pilot of the _Ghost_. With them was a tall man in a green flight suit. He was introduced as the new Squadron Leader, Lieutenant Commander Kavin Olis and his XO Flight Lieutenant Niroca Valls. I was also formally introduced to Spectre-2, Hera Syndula (who was the captain, but not in command of the ship… it was a little confusing).

That's when I was surprised when Commander Sato handed me the rank insignia of a Flight Lieutenant and told me that I was taking over the new Cresh Group. Beyond that, Cresh was to be stationed aboard the _Liberator_ with Commander Sato. _Emacipator_ would be the new fleet XO with Besh Group assigned. Finally, Lieutenant Commander Olis and Aurek Group would be stationed on the _Aurora_ as third in line of command. The other two corvettes were being retasked as supply ships. Each of the corvettes also received an upgrade with the ventral cargo bay becoming a one-fighter hangar for maintenance purposes.

On the way out to the tarmac, Captain Syndula asked me how I was doing. I shrugged and thanked her for asking without giving her an answer. I guess she was used to those kinds of responses because she just nodded and continued on in silence.

There was a short speech by Commander Sato after we got outside, and a small briefing about the travel arrangements, and then I was back to the fighter that was more my home than any bunk had ever been since joining the Rebellion. It wasn't how I remembered it, though.

Behind the canopy, on either side of the cockpit, was a red-orange round bird-like symbol. My helmet was on the seat and the same symbol was painted on either side of it as well. It took me a moment to realize that it was the same symbol the Mandalorian girl had on her armor.

I looked across the tarmac at where the _Ghost_ was parked, and I saw her there watching me while leaning against one of the landing struts. It was the first time I saw her without her helmet and she looked like a kid with blue hair, but I blamed the distance and slight heat shimmer from the tarmac. She nodded to me and I returned it after donning my helmet, the visor polarization showed me that I wasn't imagining either her age or hair color.

I guess I wasn't the last survivor of Phoenix Squadron after all, the _Ghost_ and her crew also survived.


	7. Entry 007

Entry 007: The fleet isn't what it used to be...

Things certainly changed after we arrived back in Lothal Sector. I had new people, a new command, new landing procedures, new ship, new quarters, and a new mission. Don't get me wrong, it was better than nothing, and far better than the base on Dantooine, but it was still a little disorienting.

My second in command of Cresh is a Flight Officer named Olivar Alde. He was a former pilot in the Alderaanian Defense Force who "defected" to the Rebellion, which I learned was more of a lateral transfer when it came to Alderaanians. He is tall, blonde, handsome, and knows it; a real ladies man. We hadn't even arrived at our final destination when he found a cute technician on the ship to steal away with in one of the escape pods, I think her name is Korra.

Phoenix Eleven is a Corellian Flight Officer who goes by Tensinal. He flies better than I have ever seen, especially for someone whose file states he was only a smuggler before joining the Rebellion. Unlike most Corellian smugglers, he adamantly refuses to talk about his past, and when he does talk he has a very un-Corellian accent. All I could get from his service record is that he had to be set up with a new identicard when he joined, but the rest of the file was marked classified. I've heard of redacted, but everything past this pilot's name and basic attributes was just a glowing blob of light on the datareader. I'm one of the few people to notice that he always has his blaster on his hip and a concealed vibroknife in his boot.

Phoenix Twelve is a farmgirl from Dantooine who signed up just before we shipped out. Thaema's a Pilot Officer, basically a recruit, and has to prove to me that she's qualified to become a Flight Officer (the only promotion I can make without higher command authorization). She's good on the stick, but definitely comes from the armpit of the galaxy. I'm pretty sure she was raised by Gundarks. Her language is enough to offend an Imperial Taskmaster and if I had any goal in life it is to get her to chew with her mouth closed and not talk while in that process. The silver lining is that she showers more than regularly, which I understand was a rare luxury where she grew up.

The four of us make up the new Cresh Group. It is my first command and made me realize something: I hate datawork. I have to fill out my flight logs, which I am used to. However, I also have to read the flight logs of the rest of the group and sign off on them. I have to make sure everyone does their maintenance reports, authorize requisitions from the technical head (who thankfully is Serim), and try to keep my pilots out of trouble. The last part is problematic, at best thanks to being stationed on Commander Sato's corvette (he is a stickler for the rules).

Landing procedures are also a pain. We have to rotate between the landing points every day. It isn't just to keep things fresh and new, but because one fighter needs to be maintained in the ventral landing bay. What should be daily maintenance on every fighter is taking place every four days. Serim had a full crew now, being promoted to Chief Technician of our group, but it's still a sore spot for her.

The _Liberator_ is a Corellian Engineering Corporation CR90 Corvette. It has a total crew complement of 60, with 38 primary crew, 8 officers, Commander Sato, 8 gunners, 12 flight operation technicians, and the four pilots of Cresh Group. However, it has a troop berth that can hold a hundred more. It's armed with dorsal and ventral dual-turbolaser turrets and four single turbolaser turrets on the upper hull. It's not quite 127 meters long and four decks deep. Finally, it has eight 12-person escape pods and four auxiliary pods that can hold 24.

The top deck is primarily troop berthing and supply, but it also includes the auxiliary sensor deck amidships and the dorsal turbolaser control room. Deck 2 is the primary operations deck and includes all of the operations stations and whatnot, but is also where the port and starboard airlocks are located along with the four other turbolaser controls rooms. Deck 3 is home sweet home for the crew, not to mention the Group. Deck 4 is the fighter bay in the central cargo bay with a simulator room built one of the forward cargo bays, the ventral gun control room, and the lower airlock.

Our quarters are far different than I was used to on _Phoenix Home_. The group is split between two rooms that share a common refresher. Each room is smaller than the one on the _Pelta_ -class cruiser, but it still has a bit more room since it is only filled with two bodies. The junior officer billets contain two bunks, two lockers, and a single desk with terminal. On the plus side, we're right next to the lift up and an access ladder down; we can get to our fighters and into space in about thirty seconds.

Being in a command position, I also know what our actual mission is. We are to scout the sector, keep Alliance High Command informed of Imperial numbers and what was happening in the systems, and strike where we can. It isn't just random cargo strikes, but much more. On top of that, we are to assist Rebel cells within the sector when we can and generally be a strike thorn in the Empire's side. It's hard to believe that our one squadron ia responsible for the entire sector, though.

Commander Sato decided that the scouting missions to low-priority systems would be done solo. Major systems would have a two-ship flight to scout it. Missions would be determined as needed. However, Group leaders can override the decisions and boost numbers if we think it is necessary.

There's not much else to report. However, I am requiring all members of the squadron to use the feedback exercisers we have on board at least one hour each day and raising their protein ration by a half to make sure they don't get soft. Now, it's time to try and teach Thaema how to play Sabaac.


	8. Entry 008

Entry 008: The Middle of Nowhere...

While we are technically in the Lothal Sector, we are still in the middle of nowhere. I'm quite serious when I say that. Rather than go back to our previous patrol route, which was designed to avoid Imperial patrol ships, Commander Sato took us out of lightspeed about one hour out from the nearest system. In other words, the only way the Empire would find us is if they ended up getting lost.

The _Ghost_ returned to the fleet this week. It was held back on Dantooine for some reason, but came bearing a gift for the _Emancipator_. That gift was a full load of fuel, something the _Emancipator_ was low on and the base didn't have enough to spare when we left. Not that it mattered to the fighter operation, because there was more than enough to support us.

Aurek was on patrol during their arrival, but their docking with the _Emancipator_ meant that Phoenix Five had to launch to free up an airlock. It was still an hour until patrol change, but Five didn't complain. Secretly, I think she was excited to get into space.

Commander Sato called me into the briefing room along with Serim. We were senior staff now, which meant that much less sleep! It's all good, though. It beat trying to ignore Thaema's snoring which was audible through two doors. I have no idea how Tensinal can sleep through it, but he does.

I arrived just after the briefing began. Serim shot me a look and I took a chair outside the pick-up range of the holotable. I wasn't the last one in, as both the Jedi showed up in the display moments after I sat. I glanced at the comm tech's screen and saw that Phoenix One and Five were listening in from their cockpits.

Commander Sato was explaining what we all knew. The fleet was still picking up the pieces and trying to get back in action, but it was difficult without an actual carrier. We were limited in our ability to accomplish any of our missions in the sector.

The Apprentice, who is definitely not used to staying quiet, suggested that we not fight. He said that he used to find a place to hide when things got tough for him when he was growing up. Commander Sato chastised him for speaking out of turn, but also agreed with him. The fleet would need to find a base within the Lothal Sector.

Captain Syndula brought up that the number of potential bases we knew of in the sector didn't offer sufficient protection for the fleet. Master Jarus, the Apprentice's Master, interrupted her and said they also didn't offer sufficient aid for system relief efforts.

That's when I realized that they were more than just crew members. I've seen the same looks, and heard the same tone of voice, in married couples. These two gave the full range in just a brief couple of sentences. I glanced up at Serim with a smile, knowing that she now owed me twenty credits, to which she sighed quite loudly. Commander Sato shot the both of us a warning glance and made a low slashing gesture with his hand.

That's when Ahsoka stepped into the broadcast field and said that she knew an ally who might be able to help. He was a military commander with knowledge of the Outer Rim and enough combat experience to help the Rebellion. However, he went dark a while ago and she wasn't successful in reaching him.

The apprentice, I think his name was Erza or something, volunteered the crew of the _Ghost_ to locate him. Ahsoka agreed.

Commander Sato signed off on the mission and adjourned the meeting, cutting the holofeed but keeping the comm opened with the Group officers. He asked Serim for her assessment, starting with the most junior rank and working his way up, completely opposite to Imperial protocol.

Serim said that it would be a good idea from the maintenance perspective. There was a list of growing deficiencies on the fighters that was taking more and more time to repair with being able to service only one a day. There was only so much an astromech could do with a fighter tethered to the airlock, but it definitely couldn't disassemble any of the compact systems to fully maintain them.

I brought up that it would be good to stretch our legs and breathe fresh air. I didn't know about the crew or techs, but pilots could only take so much time being "in the can" before nerves began fraying, using the ground troop slang for starship travel in a cramped non-carrier. One and Five both echoed my sentiments putting in that real food would also be good. Even Commander Sato nodded to that.

Later that day, during Besh's patrol, the _Ghost_ departed. Captain Syndula said they were going to the Seelos System and would be back in a week or two after they found Ahsoka's friend. I looked up the system on the Nav Computer and saw that it was in the Kwymar Sector, on the other side of the Outer Rim. It would take them about three-and-a-half days if they passed through major hyperlanes, six if they avoided the major trade routes. It was definitely a good system to get lost in.

Later that day, when Cresh was on patrol, Ahsoka took off from the _Emancipator_. It was a new A-Wing, and the paint was fresh and identical to her old one, but she was even better on the stick than me. She sent me a comm to take care of the fleet until she got back. I acknowledged and she jumped away. Otherwise, we were just flying in circles in the middle of nothing.

She was storing her A-Wing in the forward hold of the _Emancipator_. The reason their fuel supplies were low was because the forward hold was racked storage rather than fuel tanks. Those storage racks were for A-Wings. They weren't able to fly off without preparation, and definitely not in any position to be maintained because of their close storage. Ahsoka parked her bird in there, along with a pair of two-seat training A-Wings and a trio of replacements for the squadron.

After our shift was up, Commander Sato relaxed the patrol schedule. I think it was more for the RZ-1's rather than the pilots, but I didn't much mind. Two fighters from a group would be on a four-hour rotation with the other two in their cockpits and the next Group on alert. It still meant eight hours in a cockpit, but for four of those eight, you could stand up in the airlock tube to stretch your legs.

Unfortunately, we were really far outside of the civilized parts of the galaxy. I was serious when I said the middle of nowhere. We were so far outside of the normal space routes that we were barely even connected to the holonet. Not that it mattered with the blackout Commander Sato laid down until we were better able to mask our holonet signature. The techs were doing that, but they were also taking their time since time was about all we had.

On the manners front, I've finally taught Twelve how to chew with her mouth closed! In addition to that, some of the techs kidnapped her and made her look like an actual female humanoid. Korra, Serim, and one of the bridge workers had a makeover party at the end of the week in one of the troop billets on Deck 1.

Thaema looked rather attractive, even with her shaved head. Serim decided that she'd look good in a Coruscani Club look. She threatened Olivar's maleness if he even half thought about hitting on her, though. So, there is still much more to do in the manners column. Give me time and I'll turn her into an officer and a gentleman. And yes, I know that she's female, but I think turning her into a lady might be beyond even the ability of a fully-trained Jedi Master working in conjunction with an Imperial Intelligence Interrogation Programmer or two.


	9. Entry 009

Entry 009: It's good to have Friends...

Commander Sato instituted the full patrol schedule this week. Up until now, there have been only a few patrols going out. Their job was mostly to keep current intel on the systems we used to get our supplies to us. There weren't any Imperial patrols beyond the normal light cruiser, but a few criminal groups started surfacing.

I understood the Commander's caution at not wanting to move too fast. I lost my entire squadron, but there are times when caution needs to be your second priority. We were doing too much hiding and not enough striking. There is an old Ukian saying: "The Femermaw may bury itself in times of trouble, but that only protects it until it resurfaces to a predator ambush." It sounds better when they say it.

Every patrol began the same way, with the entire flight group jumping into the Lothal System. It was predictable, but also a good "starting point" for the various patrols. Also, it kept the Imperials from getting bored. Our jumps put us at the outskirt of the Imperial Quarantine Zone around the planet, but it was still close enough to perform a general sensor sweep. From there, we would jump to whichever system Commander Sato needed fresh intelligence on. Most of the week was completely quiet, and then it wasn't.

I was pulling a patrol with Twelve to the Oon system. It was a desert planet rimward in the sector that boasted a mining base and not much else. There were notes about some kind of uprising, but they were incomplete. However, what it had during this patrol was a small flight of ships making their way to the surface of the planet.

They weren't Imperial ships, but that didn't put my mind at ease. They were larger freighters that my sensors identified as _Aurore_ -class. They were an older design with a pair of thruster engines, but not much in the way of defenses aside from their heavy armor and single blaster turret. However, even in the Imperial academies they went by another name: Zygerrian Slave Ships.

Slavery is one of the biggest taboos with the Rebels (according to the Declaration of Rebellion) and the Zygerrians were one of the largest slaving empires in the galaxy. I knew the Empire authorized them, but even in the Academy I found it distasteful. Now, after reading some of the reports from various freed slaves, it just made my blood boil.

I did an inspection scan on the ships when they were in range and it caused a knot to form in my stomach. Each ship had a bridge crew of three, except for the lead ship which had five. In their cargo holds, the scan showed fifty lifeforms. They were clustered together so tightly that the scan couldn't identify any of them by species or size.

My scan didn't go unnoticed because the lead ship contacted me. My fighter wasn't equipped with a holographic projector, so I was quite surprised by the full-color image that appeared on my screen. Most slavers tended to hide their identity, but this one looked rather aloof and comfortable in her heavily armored vessel.

Her skin was lavender-hued, with a lighter patch around her face and inside her large, feline ears. She had a long slender neck and very delicate features. Grey makeup decorated her eyelids and lips. However, the most drawing feature was her large golden eyes. It took me a moment to remember that she was a slaver, but I was still drawn completely into her eyes (I've always loved beautiful eyes).

Her voice was exotic with a clipped accent as she spoke. She identified her ship as "Zygerrian Trade Ship _Trojan_ " and demanded to know my business. I responded that we a patrol flight for a planetary militia that was checking the surrounding systems to keep them free of pirate activity. She thanked me for my diligence and asked why I scanned her vessel. I told her that I was just making sure she wasn't up to anything nefarious like piracy or _slavery_. I let the word ooze out of my mouth in as much of an accusation as a statement.

Her ears lowered, eyes narrowed, and I saw her lip curl into a bit of a sneer. Apparently, I hit a nerve. She told me that she was not slaving and called me a racist for assuming that all Zygerrians were slavers. I smiled and said that if she wasn't slaving, then she'd have no problem setting down away from any city or garrison and allowing her "cargo" to walk out so I could make certain.

She cut the channel and I prepared to dodge the weapon fire from the turret on each of the ships. I would have preferred not to destroy any of them, but still targeted the weapon system on all three ships as a precaution. I sent the target data to Twelve, as well.

A moment later, the Zygerrian appeared with a smile and agreed to the inspection. I was immediately on guard, though. It was too easy. She asked that I follow their ships down to a small oasis along the northern polar region. I scanned the area and saw that it was at least half an hour travel from even the closest outpost with anything resembling a ship.

I signaled Twelve and we pulled in behind and below the craft, out of the firing arc of their blasters. I also told Twelve that if things went sideways, she was to disable the ships and return to the fleet. She protested, but I told her that it was my call. I expected her to do her job and follow my instructions. She acknowledged, but I heard the unspoken defiance in her voice.

The oasis turned out to be a small wet-looking pool of mud ringed by a dozen moisture vaporators. The vaporators all looked to be newly installed and my sensors showed them as being full, which was a major waste of water given the climate. The polar region turned out to be a cool and refreshing thirty-five degrees in the shade of the scrub-like trees around the mud pool. The three transports landed in formation with the oasis behind them and I set down a hundred meters in front of them.

I climbed out of my fighter and brushed my palm lightly across the pistol strapped to my thigh. It was an unconscious gesture to make sure it was there. I visibly unstrapped it, too. I was fifty meters from the closest ship in the group when its ramp opened. I stopped and decided that halfway was good enough for a meeting.

I was quite surprised when I saw the Zygerrian walk down the boarding ramp toward me. She wasn't all that tall, about one and seventy meters, but was lithe. Her stride was graceful, like a dancer or martial artist, even as the wind blew her thin skirt around her legs. I couldn't see her arms through the puffy sleeves of her dress, but her wrists were as slender as her neck in their gauntlets and her hands each ended in thick claws where most humanoids have fingernails. Her ears were also covered in a draped shawl that sported three white spikes on her forehead. I could see that she had the lightest of brown eyebrows.

She greeted me with a half bow and introduced herself as MaDall, extending her hand with a limp wrist. I was exceedingly grateful for the academy training in dealing with royalty. I removed my helmet and held it under my left arm. Taking her hand gently in mine, I raised it to my lips. Her hand smelled slightly of sandalwood and cinnamon and was very soft. Up close, I could also see that the lighter areas of her skin weren't covered by the fleece-like fur.

I introduced myself, adding my rank to my name for effect. She smiled, revealing white teeth with only the barest hint of elongated fangs. As she lowered her hand, it rested gently on an electro-whip clasped on the side of her corset. I likewise loosely rested my free hand on the grip of my pistol, my forefinger tapped just above the trigger for effect.

She smiled again and purred out that I was cuter than she initially guessed with my helmet off, followed quickly with "for a human." I thanked her and returned the compliment about her beauty. The truth is that I could have stared into her eyes until the sun went down. There was just something about them that drew me in. It was also dangerous, because the other two ships hadn't opened up yet and Twelve was still circling in a holding pattern.

She broke the silence between us with an almost flirting suggestion of her having something I wished to inspect. I hid my sudden awkwardness with a smirk. I responded with a similar flirting tone that I was ready to inspect anything she was willing to show. She looked me over, as if appraising me, and absently waved a dismissive gesture toward the ships behind her.

Her eyes never left mine, but I scanned the dropping landing ramps. When they were fully extended, all three ships began to disembark their passengers. I could identify Aqualish, Bith, Duros, Ithorian, Mon Calamari, Rodian, Togruta, Twi'lek, and even a female Wookiee. Mixed among them were humans of every age. The one thing that I didn't see, however, was any slave collars on them. More than that, there were no slavers mixed in with them and they were not walking as if bound in any way.

Several were exiting the ships pushing hovercarts that looked to contain prefab shelters and other gear. A group of the children met beside the ramp to the _Trojan_ and then ran off to play near the muddy oasis. There was even an elderly woman who set up a small chair with a sail over it to relax and watch the younglings.

MaDall shifted her stance to favor the hip with the electro-whip on it, making me grasp my pistol without pulling it. She let out a musical peal of laughter and said that she wanted a holo of my confused face just for the enjoyment the look brought her. With the same smile, she asked if I was satisfied with what I saw. I returned the full once-over she had given me and acknowledged in the positive.

She lifted her hand to her ear and began speaking to whoever was talking into her earpiece. She asked for the information to be relayed to her, then for it to slow down slightly with an annoyed tone. She looked back at me with her eyes full of mirth, as if she knew a joke that I was not in on. I placed my thumb on the safety for the blaster and tensed for a quick draw.

She said my name, my rank, and that I was assigned to Phoenix Squadron under Commander Jun Sato. My smile dropped. She gave my homeworld, my Imperial Service Identification Number, and then mock chided me for a warrant from the Empire for desertion. After that she acknowledged that there was no bounty, almost with disappointment. She ended it with my approval having been given by Fulcrum Agent Ahsoka Tano of Rebel Intelligence. In short, she had access to my entire Rebel dossier.

I let the thought circulate through my mind, realizing the implication, but nodded and said that we needed to talk. My hand relaxed off of my pistol as she agreed and looked skyward to Twelve, still circling the oasis. I heaved a sign, nodded, and spoke into the mouthpiece of my helmet, instructing her to land and assist the new _colonists_ with building their _homestead_ , following it with the safe word to acknowledge it wasn't a ploy. MaDall's smile was infuriating knowing that I had just been played by a Rebel operative.

I followed her to her ship, mentally noting that the sway of her hips as she walked in the light dress was even more impressive from behind for various reasons. Before we got to the ramp, she looked back over her shoulder and caught me staring. She didn't look upset, but her smile grew into something conspiratorial. I had to snap myself out of watching her as we entered the ship, just in case there was an ambush. It was quite difficult, and I didn't know why. Though, walking behind her, I was aware of the spiced incense smell even more.

The bridge of her ship was small. A human man was seated on the right side with a Twi'lek woman on the left. A human infant was on her lap reaching for the various controls and trying to pull them into its mouth. The pilot was Mon Calamari and wearing a similar uniform to the one I saw on Admiral Raddus at the Rebel base on Dantooine. He was finishing up a post-flight checklist before standing. I didn't see a rank insignia on his jacket, but nodded to him in case a salute was warranted. He returned it as the man picked up the child and wrapped an arm around the Twi'lek's waist, following the Mon Cal out.

MaDall did a regal flourish as she sat in the central command couch of the bridge. In truth, the seat was more of a throne on a raised dais than a starship commander's seat. She tapped one of her dark claws on the arm before gracefully sliding her finger across a button that closed the door and dimmed the lights. I placed my helmet on the control board the man vacated, noting that it was a comm station and turned to sit against it with crossed arms.

She asked if she could interest me in a bit of refreshment, adding that she always enjoyed a glass after a successful mission. I nodded and thanked her for her hospitality, on edge because this was nothing like what I had expected. She pulled a pair of glasses and a bottle from beside her seat and poured. It was a very dry and bitter wine, but I politely sipped it to not be rude.

I asked her what was going on outside, seeing the various peoples setting up a small town of prefab structures and catching the sight of Thaema's shaved head and red coverall as she worked on a generator. MaDall explained that she was a slaver, letting it hang in the air as I took another sip of the wine, following it with "according to the Empire." She would travel to Imperial-held worlds, with their permission, and "abduct" the most oppressed population for her personal slave empire. The Empire saw it as a way to control the population and lighten the need for resources, but her plans were not as nefarious as the Empire believed. In truth, she rescued and relocated those members of the population to Oon where she would also set them up with a homestead. In return, they would mine and process the local ores for sales to the Empire (at a marked up rate) as well as to the Rebellion (at a marked down rate).

I asked her why she did it and was rewarded with the same melodic laughter. The scent of sandalwood and cinnamon was also getting stronger in the room; either that or the wine was more intoxicating than I first thought. She explained that it came about after a slave uprising. A Mandalorian girl instigated it and then gave her contact information to someone that could help her and she could help to make a difference.

MaDall then asked me why I left the Imperial service. It was a back and forth with questions for quite a while, and one refill of the wine. I wasn't even paying attention to the time because I was completely lost in the sound of her voice, those golden eyes, and the intoxicating smell that was only getting stronger. It wasn't until a beam of the setting sun shined through the viewport that I realized how late it was.

I asked if I could use her comm station to contact the fleet to report in, the chrono on my gauntlet said I was an hour past when I should have reported. She smiled and said there would be a cost associated with its use, but we could work out the details later. I thanked her and keyed in the frequency for the _Liberator_ , barely noticing her stare as I leaned over the console.

Commander Sato wasn't too pleased that I missed my rendezvous, but his anger abated when I explained that I made contact with a sympathetic planet. He even smiled, which was very odd, when I told him that they already had ties to the Rebellion. He granted me permission to stay for the rest of the day, but to be back to the fleet before the end of my next shift.

I ended the comm and turned to see MaDall speaking with a human woman. She had dark skin and white markings on her forehead. MaDall introduced her to me as her second in command. I greeted her, but she looked at my uniform with distaste. She finished her business with MaDall and left without further acknowledging me. I didn't ask, knowing that not everyone liked the military, or the Rebellion for that matter. As she left, though, she looked at me skeptically, back at MaDall, and then rolled her eyes. The hatch closed behind her.

The sun set faster than I thought it would so far north on the planet. In the time it took for me to finish contacting the fleet, and be introduced to MaDall's second in command, the sunlight was only barely showing through the viewport. The majority of the illumination was coming from the dim safety lights on the consoles, as well as the random lit buttons.

MaDall unwound the shawl from her hesd and set it beside the half-empty bottle of wine. The lavender of her fur blended into the shadows and the brown of her dress gave her the blurred profile of a ghost. The last rays of light through the viewport ignited her golden eyes like a binary in the depths of space. I could barely make out her breathing through the gentle bobbing of those stars and saw that it was faster than before. The smell of sandalwood and cinnamon had increased, too, but also had the hint of something floral.

The entire bridge felt suddenly cramped. It was like the jaws of a trap closing around a hapless rodent, and I was the rodent. I carefully suggested that we head outside to check on my wingmate and the progress of the homestead. She said that she was sure they would be able to get along without us. As she said that, I saw the glint of teeth and a sudden flash of movement.

It happened so fast that I tensed after she was already against me. I felt her breath warm on my ear and a purring whisper escaped her lips as she asked what I was afraid of. I was very aware now of the spiced incense and flowers. I cleared my throat and said that I wasn't afraid of anything, but my voice cracked at the end. She pressed her lips to my neck and dragged them up, inhaling the entire time before she whispered that perhaps I should be because she didn't play gently.

I reached up and gripped her shoulders; they were small and firmly muscled. I intended to push her back slightly to get some space between us. As a space opened between our bodies, though, she instead shifted her head too close to mine. She whispered against my lips that I was forgetting the price for using her comm.

I opened my mouth to ask what the price was, but nothing came out. Instead, MaDall took that as an opportunity to plant her lips against mine. They were soft and very warm, but her tongue was quite rough and almost abrasive.

I slid my hands to her upper arms to push her away, but they slipped over some kind of metal under the material of her sleeves. I reached down lower to grasp her arms just above the gauntlets, but she intercepted them and intertwined her fingers with mine, sharp claws tapping the backs of my gloves. She pulled my hands down and behind her.

I leaned backwards, intending to pull out of her kiss, but it only made her press her body tighter against me. She released one of my hands and snaked her arm around the back of my neck and grabbed my vest to as an anchor.

I tried to stand straighter and out of range of her lips, but that caused her to arch her back against me to continue the kiss. She released my other hand to pull herself up. Her legs wrapped around my hips and I naturally grabbed onto her so she wouldn't fall, which was a bit of a mistake seeing as how I was now firmly grasping her seat. It was quite firm. She was much more solid than I first thought, and my balance was thrown off enough to make me pivot on the deck. It was only by luck that I fell into her command couch. Her embrace never wavered even once.

I'm not normally one to pull away from the embrace of an attractive sentient, especially not one that is so insistent on embracing me and smelled so intoxicating. However, my mind kept screaming that there was something wrong with the entire situation. It could have been a trap, it could have been a distraction, or it could even have been an attack. All I knew was that there was a woman of a moderately compatible species moving faster than I did at a Corellian night club. But I didn't really have any say in the matter since she found a new and dexterous way to keep going every time I tried to decline.

Eventually, MaDall ended the kiss. She stood and pulled me to my feet before reengaging. She stumbled around her chair and dragged me with her. I pulled back, giving in to the temptation that was screaming at me, in order to step around the deck and decided to take control a little myself.

I pushed her against the bulkhead beside the hatch and pulled her hands over her head, bracing her crossed gauntlets to the wall with one hand as my other moved down her arm and the side of her body. I removed my lips from hers and bit lightly at the cloth that covered her neck. She let out a purring moan and easily pulled one hand free, ineffectually slapping at the wall twice before finally catching the panel to open the hatch.

Her quarters were adjacent to the cockpit and were as big as mine on the _Liberator_. There was a small walkway between a dresser to the left and refresher door to the right, but the rest of the room was filled with only a bed. I guessed that I could stretch out in either direction on it and not touch the sides, it was that large. The lighting was still dim, flickering like sputtering flames, and there was a heavier smell of the musky incense than before. The sole blanket on the bed felt like some kind of animal pelt with long, soft fur.

MaDall's hands came from around my neck as our lips were still pressed together. I reached down at the sudden space between us and pulled my gloves, vest, and belt off. Likewise, MaDall dropped her dress on the floor beside them.

I kissed her again as she pulled my flight suit over my shoulders and I was barely able to kick my boots off. The fur of her back was soft and warm, the muscles firm under the fleece of her fur. I leaned my head down to her now bare neck and bit lightly again, her pulse quickening under my mouth. She nudged my head to the side and did the same, her fangs dragging hard along my skin.

I tried to pull off my undershirt, but the Tygerrian proved that her species was deceptively strong. She threw me backwards into the middle of her bed as she stalked up on its raised surface in a crouch. She indeed had metallic clasps over her slender upper arms, a halter that covered her torso but left her midriff uncovered, to include her furless stomach, and an even lighter skirt than before that was slightly translucent in the flame-like light. Her smile turned into bared fangs and her golden eyes narrowed with a feral glint a moment before she pounced like a predator upon its prey.

I awoke the next morning with the relaxing sound of rhythmic purring in my ear. MaDall was still asleep, wrapped around me in the dim light of her cabin. She had her fingers intertwined with mine between our bodies while her other arm was across my chest. She was pressed bodily against me and had a leg arching over mine with her face buried in my neck. She was gently curling her hand around the side of my chest, her claws pressing against my skin, before relaxing. She was kneading the blanket with her other hand, gently squeezing mine at the same time.

I carefully uncurled from her grip, taking extra caution to not wake her when I untwined her leg from mine, and slid off of the bed. I put my flight suit back on, wincing when the material came into contact with my shoulders. I picked up the remains of my undershirt, the back was torn and bloody from the Zygerrian's claws, so I only assumed that my skin was completely shredded. I slid my feet into my boots, grabbed the rest of my gear, and left MaDall's cabin.

It wasn't yet dawn, but I was completely awake. I was used to the ship's clock and this was about the time I normally rose, regardless of the previous night's activities. I dropped my helmet and other gear onto the seat of my A-Wing and decided to take advantage of the atmosphere. I had my starboard pivot mount completely disassembled when Thaema stumbled back to her fighter in her own "walk of shame."

After securing her own gear, she walked over to my ship with her toolkit and helped me lift the cannon out of its housing so I could get a little more in-depth in my maintenance work. She asked if I had a good night, a conspiratorial smile splitting her features. I flexed my shoulders painfully and rubbed at a couple of raw scrapes on my neck with a smile. She acknowledged by saying her too, though probably not with anyone that sported sharp claws and fangs.

We got my laser taken care of by the time the sun rose and began working on her port engine assembly. I didn't even hear MaDall walk up behind me until she breathed a good morning into my ear and pressed herself against my painfully raw back. I glanced over my shoulder to return the greeting and was rewarded with a fanged nibble on my lobe. It wasn't painful, but definitely chiding. I guessed it was because she woke up alone.

I excused myself from Thaema and let MaDall wrap herself around my arm, pulling it in close. She asked if I was planning on leaving without saying goodbye as she led me back to her ship. I told her that I would never dream of it; I just didn't want to wake her because I was still on my ship's time. She understood, but still bumped me with her hip and told me she might not have minded waking up with me. We ended up in the galley opposite her room.

She gave me some kind of bitter tea as she sat across from me. I reached out and took her hand in mine as we sipped it in silence. After a time, she explained that her species were attracted to bravery, which I exhibited when I agreed to meet with her the previous day in what could have been a trap. Beyond that, her species found it difficult to "control" themselves during certain times of the year and that I smelled very good. She lifted my hand to her lips and planted a long kiss on my knuckles while inhaling.

I blushed and pulled her hand to my lips, telling her that she smelled very good too. I let my mouth remain on her skin and felt the heat build as I saw her face darken with a blush. She said that I smelled a natural pheromone that Zygerrians produced when they felt attracted to others. I asked if that meant she liked me and sunk my teeth lightly behind her thumb.

She licked her lips and caught her lower in a bite under a fang. She held it there for a few breaths as if contemplating something. She asked if I enjoyed my tea, noticing that my cup was empty. I nodded, dimly aware that the floral spiced incense smell was filling the small room. A moment later, she swiped both cups to the ground. We both stood and embraced over the small table before I eased her back into it, her sharp claws digging into my shoulders.

It was close to midday when we left the ship again. We had tried twice previously, but it didn't take. The first time, we ended up somehow in the cockpit and the second time in the shower. This time was after a long and lazy cuddle in her bed, completely worn out by our previous attempt at escape.

I was still moving stiffly in my flight suit due to the deep gouges on my back (and arms, chest, and hips after this morning's festivities), but MaDall was kind enough to spray the wounds with bacta. The homestead was completely assembled and another transport had shown up with mining gear sometime since that morning. Thaema was with a small group of colonists doing something to one of the vaporators and the rest were using the gear to do something in the distance.

I promised MaDall that I would be back when my schedule allowed it. She laughed again and told me that if I took too long, she would simply abduct me and keep me as her personal slave. I told her that I might not mind being kept, but whispered close to her ear that I might be tempted to enslave her on occasion. She tensed for a moment, a shudder traveling the length of her body, before arching against me and kissing me deeply, catching my lip in her fangs for a moment before she pulled away. That drew cheers and jeers from some of the children, a few of the colonists, and Thaema.

With that, I collected my wingman and returned to the fleet. I was thankful that we didn't run into any problems, though. It was difficult to concentrate with MaDall's pheromones still thick in the air of my cockpit. It brought pleasant memories while in hyperspace. Also, there was the fact that I couldn't lean back in my seat without my breath catching in pain.

I got back to the _Liberator_ and logged my flight records. I got a message from Serim with a stylized smiling face that highlighted the maintenance report I filled out. It was followed soon-after with a list of other systems to maintain if I ever set-down on a planet again. I saw from the attachments, that every pilot in the squadron had received a similar list.

Commander Sato accepted my report, though he was curious why I didn't have more information in it. I responded that most of the time I was just sorting out details with MaDall. I'm glad he didn't ask for me to go more in-depth. In the end, he told me that he'd be adding Oon to my patrol route at least once a month, with a stop-over, from now on. He said it was to ensure good communication with MaDall's faux slave empire, but also to act as a liaison and recruiter.

I sent MaDall the good news after my debriefing and she replied that she was looking forward to more in-depth liaising. The next time, she would show me around her main city and her private quarters which were far more comfortable than those aboard the _Trojan_. The idea was quite enticing, to the point that I actually thought what it would be like to leave the cockpit and become a permanent liaison. Not that it would work, as one Imperial inspection would blow the whole ruse.

I hit the refresher after the comm and ended up heading straight to the infirmary. I forgot about the fact that I had more scratches than a Nexu trainer. The 2-1B put bacta strips across most of the deeper gouges and an anti-septic syntheskin spray on the smaller ones. He asked how I received them and just shook his head dismissively when I mentioned they were from a Zygerrian. He then handed me a printed flimsy with preventative measures for relations with other species, specifically between Human and Zygerrian.

I grabbed a meal in the galley. I didn't realize how hungry I was until the first bite. It was the one thing I had forgotten to do when on Oon. Then again, I had other priorities when I was with MaDall. I finished my meal and ended up getting seconds in the way of some nutrient paste.

After food, I headed to the rec room to join in with the rest of the scuttlebutt. I got there in time to see Thaema with Ten, Eleven, and a few of the crew around her. Apparently, she hooked up with a Twi'lek named Calitor. As I walked in, she looked up and said in a loud voice, "but he's the one that was in the Zygerrian's bed the entire time we were on planet."

I glared at her and said she was lying. After a moment of that hanging in the silence, I smiled and said that for a time we were on the table in the galley, her command couch in the cockpit, and even the shower in her refresher. Thus, it was my turn to relate the events of the previous day. Serim also half-heartedly demanded to see my trophies, poking at the healing wounds through my flight suit and vest playfully. In the end, even Tensinal was impressed by the damage I sustained, suggesting an armored back plate the next time I allow myself to be enslaved or perhaps a set of padded gloves for my captor. I think his actually making a joke was more impressive than my wounds, though.

Even as I write this, I can still smell the sandalwood, cinnamon, and flowers. Part of me hopes it never goes away, but another part knows that if it didn't I might just have to become a permanent liaison.


	10. Entry 010

Entry 010: Something Old and Something New...

Ahsoka returned to the fleet toward the middle of the week. While she docked in the Emancipator's forward hold, she soon transferred to the Liberator. Tensinel wasn't upset that he was called to move his fighter for half an hour to free up the dock. In the end, he did a quick sweep on the sensor perimeter to ensure the capital ships were properly attuned.

I had been helping Serim replace a component in the navigation/tactical planning room and was making my way back to my quarters when I passed her. She smiled and nodded as she always did, heading toward the bridge to meet with Commander. I didn't know what they were meeting about, or really care. All I knew was that I had an appointment with the medical droid because scooting on my back on the floor probably reopened some of the deeper gashes.

Onebee told me that I was good, but to keep my vest on while in uniform, regardless of what I was doing to add a buffer against rubbing the wounds. He also had to give me an immune-booster because mine was out of date. Then again, the Academy medical records weren't available to him, so we only had my memory of the last time I received one.

Later that day, I pulled an uneventful patrol to Lothal and then onto Garel to keep tabs on the Imperial presence there. Once the group hit Garel, we split for another location. Twelve headed to Vyndal, a primitive world that was free of the Empire. Eleven went to Camson. Ten headed for the desert planet Zyzar. I had the task of scouting the aquatic world of Quila.

In short, it was a boring flight with absolutely nothing happening. Though, I did see some water on Quilla, and waves. Did I mention the oceans? I think there were some seas, too. I swear that my scanners even got bored of scanning the absolutely ball of nothing that was the wet planet. Though, my return trip to the fleet was full of thoughts of MaDall. If I concentrated hard enough, I could still smell her. Though, that was only in my head.

Ahsoka intercepted me on my way to the rec room. We spoke about what happened while she was gone. She was quite interested in my encounter with MaDall on Oon. I tried skirting the subject, but she wouldn't let up. Finally, I admitted to the tryst that we had.

She seemed genuinely surprised as I related a 'cleaned-up' version of the details that I had bragged about last week from the very chair I was sitting in across from Ahsoka. She told me that she had a history with the Zygerrian's in her youth and found it very difficult to trust MaDall when she learned of the slaver's change of heart.

It was then that Ahsoka surprised me even further. She asked me if I trusted MaDall. My initial response was yes, but then I thought about it and said that I didn't know. The both of us were attracted to each other because of her heat which made her pump out pheromones and take a better interest to me with my pheremones. I told her to ask me after my next meeting with the former slaver and I'd let her know then. She simply nodded.

We sat in silence for a time with Ahsoka helping me go over flight logs for the group. I saw her enter some notes on Vyndal, flagging it for further examination by Rebel Intelligence. She even made me some caf, which I was grateful for. It had been a long day.

After a few sips of her own caf, she asked me the oddest question, "do you know what that crystal is around your neck?" I raised my hand to my vest, wondering if I had slipped it out without knowing it. I felt it press against my skin; it felt slightly warmer.

I undid my collar and pulled the crystal out. I looked brighter somehow, catching more of the light in the room. I handed it to Ahsoka and told her that I found it in a broken lightsaber when I was a kid. I related the details to her, and saw the expression on her face when I said the saber was cut cleanly in half.

We talked about it a little, also about what the agricorps village was. She handed it back to me and closed my hand around it. She told me to take care of it, because it was special. I smiled and told her that I knew it was. That's when I revealed to her the day it began to shine.

When I told her about that day, she looked more interested than she previously was. I felt the pressure in the back of my head like the first time I met with her those couple months ago. She rose and smiled at me, calling me very curious. I returned the smile and asked what she expected; I was a pilot, after all.

The next day, Cresh was on patrol when the _Ghost_ returned. I got back to the fleet just in time to see it depart from the _Liberator_. Truthfully, I was glad to see it go. It was using the same tube I was scheduled to dock with and I had a bit of a refresher emergency building.

After chow, I met our new addition. He was an older gentleman named Rex, a Captain. Something about him both looked and sounded familiar, but I couldn't put my finger on exactly what it was. He was bald and had a shock white beard. He also wore old clone armor that I remembered from holodramas about the war.

Ahsoka introduced him to me. For an old guy, he had a strong handshake. Before I could say anything, he asked me why I wasn't wearing my sidearm. Glancing down, I could see he was sporting a pair of DC-17 hand blasters. I told him that we were aboard a friendly ship and there was no need for them. He bellowed out that kind of thinking would be changing soon enough and then went off in search of Commander Sato.

The next day, all personnel were required to attend mandatory weapon qualification on the Troop Deck, Deck 1. I had my Merr-Sonn Model 57 strapped to my hip and saw that Tensinel's backup pistol was on Thaema's hip, a Merr-Sonn Model 44. Tensinel was sporting his DL-44 and Olivar was equipped with a sleek-looking Kueget LN-21. Other crew members were in the area, most with the standard armory-issue DH-17, except for Serim who was carrying a BlastTech DH-23 "Outback" (which was just a modified version of the DH-17).

It took close to an hour before our group was up. Because of the small size of the range in the Deck 1 Barracks, it could only hold four at a time. Rather than the entire group firing at once, Captain Rex had us go one at a time. He was critiquing our stance before he even let us fire.

Tensinel and I both passed, though he said that Tensinel should hide the fact that he was carrying two additional blasters a little better and his two vibroblades. That shocked me because I only knew of one of Tensinel's additional pistols and only a single blade. Ten was told that he was standing too loose and that he wouldn't be able to hit anything. Thaema was all kinds of messed up with Rex giving her a quick lesson in proper firing position that was right out of the Imperial Academy handbook, word for word.

When it came to the actual shooting, Tensinel scored a perfect hundred out of hundred. His heavy blaster only had fifty shots, but he didn't even break his shot timing when he holstered it and drew his second and then this third. Even Rex was impressed by his shooting.

I was second place with ninety-one and Olivar came in third with eighty-seven. His firing stance was loose on purpose because he went from standing to crouching for the second half of his targets. Twelve didn't pass at all. She scored only sixty shots. Rex told her that he hoped her hand-to-hand was better than her marksmanship and ordered her to attend his marksmanship training every other day.

Serim and Korra were part of the next group to exit. Korra scored seventy-five, the minimum passing, and Olivar dragged her to one of the empty billets to "work on her form." Serim just rolled her eyes at the ill-conceived explanation for them to act like gizka.

Serim scored ninety and jokingly chided herself for not being as good as the joystick jockey. I shot her a look and retorted with the fact that at least I knew how to use a joystick. She just smiled and said that she did too, just not in the cockpit. I opened my mouth to say something as she walked out of the room and Tensinel slapped me on the back and told me to keep my dignity, I obviously lost that one.


	11. Entry 011

Entry 011: Pirate Infestations...

Things are getting a little more exciting in the fleet. The schedule was changed again, but not in any huge way. Cresh slept during third shift, one element pulled a scout mission while the other patrolled during second shift, third shift saw us as alert fighters for Besh's patrol. The only thing I was glad about was that Cresh's sleep schedule wasn't changed. I really hate the sleep aid; it makes me feel like I'm underwater.

The scouting missions were getting more in-depth now. We were following Captain Rex's intelligence and scouting for potential bases. Specifically, we were looking for somewhere we could turn into a home and get some actual ground under our feet.

Our last fuel shipment also came with a mission for the crew of the _Ghost_. I didn't know what it was, need to know and all that, but scuttlebutt said they were raiding a Sienar Fleet Systems factory on Absanz for intel on the fighter that Vader was flying, as well as other advanced fighters and weapons. Yes, on a ship this small, scuttlebutt is quite accurate. This is especially true when it comes from the comms tech.

In the middle of the week, I was dispatched with Nine to investigate an old Clone Wars era refit station in the outskirts of the Galzez system. The system was generally unoccupied except for a Dug delegation of some kind on the only habitable rock in the system. We wouldn't be anywhere near it, though.

We jumped into Lothal, took long-range sensor readings and jumped out. I noticed that there were an unusual amount of Imperial transports moving from the planets northern hemisphere to a Class four container transport. What's funny is that it had a pair of Imperial Star Destroyers flanking it and an above average number of TIE fighters on patrol around it.

When we got to Galzaz, things were quiet. There were no other ships in the system. We came in near to fourth planet and took the "long way" to the depot. All the while, both my and Nine's sensors were completely overpowered. Aside from the station, and a debris field around one of the planets, there was nothing in the system that hadn't been there for a few million years. The debris field read like a typical Separatist Capital ship that had gotten too close to a Clone Wars depot.

With the system read, we focused our attention on the abandoned depot. The problem was that the depot was quite populated and hot for having been empty. My sensors read a pressurized atmosphere, thirty life forms of various species, a hot reactor, and a weapons lock.

I juked left and dove while Nine climbed high and right. The turbolaser fire lit up where we once were and continued to track us both around. The only good thing was that it was turbolaser fire and not a point-defense battery. I saw those, but we were still out of range.

I opened a comm channel and demanded to know what the hell was going on. It's rather rude to greet someone with turbolaser fire. The face that greeted me on the comm looked like a leather floor mat. Don't get me wrong, most Weequay look like leather floor mats, but this one looked like the mat in front of a Corellian brothel during the rainy season.

The face that not even a mother could love told me that he represented some pirate group and that we were trespassing in their territory. To emphasize that fact, they launched a group of fighters to escort us in for a better conversation. I politely declined and suggested that he suck vacuum, but he insisted. My sensors showed that the station's single ion cannon began to power up.

All four of the starfighters were uglies. That's the military designation for a fighter made of the corpses of other fighters. Two had Z-95 bodies with TIE fighter solar arrays. One was a TIE ball cockpit melded onto the neck of a Y-Wing, without the armor plates. The final was some kind of Mandalorian-designed fighter but the spin ring was mounted with four Z-95 wings.

I told our host that we could have a peaceful conversation that could work out to everyone's benefit. He responded with an insult regarding my mother, a Rodian, and an act that both would probably find distasteful in more than one way. What these pirates lacked in manners they made up for in creativity.

The Y-TIE and one of the TIE-95s went after Nine while the other two targeted me. While both of my new friends had kept up with each other, I notice that the Mandalorian ugly was hanging back slightly and letting the TIE-95 take the first bite. Oh, the Mando was also the only ship with shields, which meant she was probably their ace.

There were further taunts directed at me from the depot, but I ignored them as the TIE-95 opened fire. It was too far out of range, but that didn't stop me from reacting as if it were in range. I spun to baffle its targeting sensors and pulled into a dodge. It followed me, but the Mando didn't. Instead, she pulled into a circling angle.

The TIE-95 was directly behind me and firing, but the shots were going wide by a huge margin. I didn't think that pilot could hit the broad side of a Star Destroyer from inside the landing bay, but that didn't stop me from putting my shields double rear in case he got lucky.

The moment I took a single hit to the shields, which dropped them to three-quarters power, I did three things. I cut speed to a quarter, evened out my shields, and pulled up. The ship stopped firing and followed my climb. That was a mistake because my nose-up at the slow speed put him right in my sights. My lasers cut through one of his solar arrays and went straight into his generator. I flew through the leftovers.

The Mandalorian was a different matter. She was now pulling around in an attack run against me. I call her a she, because something about the way she flew read as less aggressive and more skill. Call me sexist if you want, but there are Imperial data files to back up my claim.

I can't tell you exactly what happened next. I'm sure I could go into a play-by-play by reading off each and every movement on my sensor logs, but that would turn this into a full-on novel. All I can tell you is that the Mando and I danced. I hadn't had a dogfight like that since the Academy.

Neither of us got more than a single shot on either of our shields. She was about as maneuverable as I was and her four blaster cannons were equal to the power in my pair of lasers. Even our shields were about equal. As for skill, I would have enjoyed buying her a drink and sharing stories because she was good.

I fully admit that the two of us were at a stalemate. That didn't stop either of us from trying for a lucky shot. However, I had an ace up my sleeve. Nine took out his TIE-95 faster than I had and whittled down the less-maneuverable Y-TIE to the point that it lost power. He didn't kill it, but it was dead in space.

I knew that it was dangerous, but I broke the dogfight. I angled my deflectors to the rear and put max power to my engines. Don't get me wrong, her blasters weren't all that powerful, but when they were all four firing right up my exhaust pipe they made quick work of my shields. It didn't last, though. Nine unleashed a full salvo of laser blasts right into her cockpit. Her ship didn't even blow up; it just continued flying into the void with a hole where the cockpit used to be.

I spun around, pissed that the pirates would sacrifice an artist like they had. I asked them to surrender or face the consequences. Leatherface made a rude gesture and the capital ship ion cannon fired two shots. They were nowhere close. What was getting closer was a handful of starfighters and transports from the habitable rock.

The pirate must have called for backup while the Mando and I were dancing. I told him that I thought our little conversation was a private affair. He told me that he thought it was good enough to be shared and smiled a line of jagged and broken teeth. I took the smile to be a personal insult and reacted accordingly.

Armaments were in short supply in the fleet, so only group leaders ever got any and refills only came when we were docked inside the ships. However, while the station was heavily armed it was completely unshielded. I guessed that the debris field got the shield generator before it became a debris field.

I targeted the bridge of the station and loosed two concussion missiles right at the smiling face of the Weequay pirate. His smile faded as he began screaming in Huttese at the crew behind him. The turbolasers began firing wildly toward the streaking missiles, but that was like trying to shoot a flittergnat with a heavy repeating blaster.

The feed died when my gift impacted the bridge, as did the fire from the turbolasers. The ion cannon was still hot, but it was easily avoided. Nine and I strafed the weapon emplacements, the generators, the station-keeping drives, the airlocks, and even burned off the pirate's haphazardly painted symbol. By the time the reinforcements were in range, there was only a single life form in the hulk and it would take its own refit station to bring it back into operation.

We made our way back to the fleet to report on what we found. Captain Rex sounded upset that the pirates had taken over the facility, but then nodded in approval when I relayed how we had properly decommissioned it. Commander Sato said that we acted appropriately given the circumstances.

Later in the week, the _Ghost_ returned with another Imperial troop shuttle. They docked with the _Emancipator_ and I overheard some of the conversation with Commander Sato over holo. The mission was a failure, but we got another shuttle. By the time Cresh was up for patrol, both ships were gone.


	12. Entry 012

Entry 012: Secrets, Favors, and Homes...

The fleet moved this week from the middle of nowhere to the middle of nowhere else. It's technically listed as a star system, but only by the definition that it is a star surrounded by planets. It didn't even have a name, only an old Republic System Designation number. Personally, I wouldn't even call them planets, but who am I to judge.

The primary was a red giant, but there is also a barely dwarf star orbiting it. I guess it used to be a gas giant until some idiot tossed a lit death stick into it. The rest of the planets weren't much better off. The inner system was all rocks and the outer system was all gas giants. Most didn't even have any useful gasses on them; those that did were so radioactive from the dwarf that they're useless. There weren't even any moons, only rings where the moons once were before they were pulled apart.

The one thing this system did offer was actual holonet access. We got updates from around the Empire and mail actually began circulating. It didn't matter much to me, though. My inbox was nothing but spam. Well, there were a couple of recruiting adverts for other Rebel squadrons that I qualified for with my current flight credentials. Not that I would ever leave Phoenix Squadron, but it felt good to be wanted. One even promised me my own personal technician, but I doubted that tech would be anything like Serim.

We were still running scouting missions for bases in the sector, which is why Tensinel approached me when we both returned from a fruitless run. He said that he might have a line on a potential base for the fleet. I asked him some questions, but he was rather tight-lipped (as if there were any other way for him to be). He asked me to go to Commander Sato with his suggestion and he requested permission to check it out.

I'd call it sketchy, but with Tensinel, one could never tell. Commander Sato thought the same when I approached him with it. Captain Rex was also present and thought it might have been worth a look. It beat any of the suggestions he was giving. The commander signed off on the mission, but said that I had to accompany him to the destination. Tensinel didn't say anything aside from "I'd have preferred to go alone" before he walked away to plan the mission.

The _Ghost_ returned to the fleet the next day. Because Ahsoka was gone, Five docked in the forward cargo compartment of the _Emancipator_. When the _Ghost_ heard about the suggestion, they generally approved. Sabine asked to join us, but Tensinel (who was present for the briefing because it was his plan) declined. He said that a Mandalorian would only make his sources jumpier than they already were. There was no argument, only a knowing nod from the warrior who went back to leaning against a chair occupied by Ezra.

The _Phantom_ , the _Ghost's_ auxiliary fighter/troop ship, took off while Cresh was on patrol. They were in search of medical supplies for the _Emancipator_ in an old Clone Med station. Tensinel was still planning the mission, so Ten and Twelve took the entire shift. I tried to assist him, but he just looked at me with his deadpan until I found somewhere else that needed my attention (specifically, a sabacc game with Serim and some of her tech team).

The next day, Eleven and I were on our way to the Garel System. Looking it up, I saw that it was only a few minutes jump from Lothal. That would have raised some flags, but I trusted Tensinel. Though, that trust was heavily strained when we exited hyperspace near to the planet Garel and saw a Star Destroyer in orbit. But, it jumped out before we got near the planet.

Eleven was lead on the mission, so he took care of landing clearances. I got an update from the Garel City Spaceport telling us to dock at Bay 94. I also saw that the entire system inside the orbit of Garel was listed as an Imperial Quarantine zone with patrolled checkpoints.

We landed in the docking bay and made sure the ships were secure. Before we left, Tensinel handed me a beige flight bag. Inside was a combat jumpsuit kit. He told me that it might not be a good idea to be seen in a Rebel uniform on the planet until we got the lay of the land. I agreed and changed. When I saw him next, I was quite surprised.

Tensinel was in armor. It wasn't just a combat jumpsuit like the one I was wearing, but actual armor: a chest piece, gauntlets, cod, shins, thighs, and biceps, all with the same blood red color over a beige pressure suit. The helmet had two eye slits and his voice was enhanced and changed when he told me to follow him and to look tough.

We stopped at a couple of tapcafe's, caught a singer at a club, and ate lunch at a nice little cantina. There were Imperial patrols, but they only looked for things out of the ordinary. Even though we were dressed in combat gear and strapped with weapons, we fit in. Though, the Imperials were also acting as local security forces when they arrived to break up a brawl in one of the tapcafes. Garel was occupied, but ignored. There was an Imperial supply base on the planet, but it was on another continent.

We made our way into the heart of the dock-master zone. It was outside the spaceport proper and looked to be in far better shape. There was an overabundance of brothels and other establishments of ill repute on either side of the speederlane, but there was a lack of Imperial patrols. Though, I did recognize a couple uniforms entering a parlor that proclaimed all-hours Twi'lek dancers.

We ended up at a massive estate that was labeled as belonging to the Dock Master. Tensinel didn't even pay attention to the signs to alert the attendant and wait. He just walked right in and I followed. It was dimly lit, but the gold accents on practically everything made the entire room look aflame.

We passed into a side room filled with droids in front of various computer stations. I got a look at one and it was cargo manifests and shipping authorizations. Another was a flight control station for the spaceport. One of the droids looked up at us, pressed a button on the side of its console, and went back to what it was doing.

The next room told me what it pressed. We walked in and were looking down the barrel of five blaster rifles. There were four humans and a Rodian. Tensinel looked around and proclaimed in a loud voice that he didn't appreciate blasters being pointed in his general direction. This caused the security forces to look at one another in confusion.

A Zabrak walked out from a side door with an annoyed expression on her face. The moment she saw Tensinel, her expression changed to a huge smile. She practically sprinted around the guards and leaped to wrap herself around the armored man. Though he didn't even shift when she hit him, her hug caused one of his plated to clack off of its magnalock. That made the guards even more confused, but they slowly lowered their rifles.

She scolded him for not calling ahead or else she would have dressed more appropriately. Her simple shift was belted at the waist and showed off her bare sides all the way to what I only assumed were dancer's shoes. Even the single strip of fabric looked like a natural shimmersilk and was almost transparent where it actually pressed against her skin.

Tensinel took off his helmet and kissed the woman for an uncomfortable long time. It was long enough for the security team to begin looking anywhere but at the shapely leg of the woman arching over his thigh armor. I cleared my throat, but it didn't do anything to stop the kiss. One of the security guards looked at me, shook his head, and walked back over to the nearby table. The others joined him.

The woman finally let my wingman come up for air after about three minutes. In that time, there were two hands of Sabacc played and one of the security guards offered me a drink, which I politely declined. It was then that Tensinel realized that there were other people on the planet and that we had some business to attend to.

He asked if the boss was in, to which she nodded with a smile. She wrapped her hand through his and pulled him toward a door. I followed them into the next room, but she told me that I had to wait there. In the other room, I heard the baritone laugh of a Hutt before the door closed.

As far as waiting rooms went, this one wasn't all that bad. There was a holodancer on the single table in the room, a female Nautolan who was rather limber. She was spinning around the metallic pole that connected the table to the ceiling. I sat down in one of the chairs near the table to watch the show and was surprised when the hologram came down off the table and began giving me a holo lap dance. I couldn't feel anything, but that didn't stop my body from reacting. I stood and walked through the hologram. I decided to lean against a wall and enjoy the pole routine from a distance.

Tentinel came out of the private meeting with the Zabrak still glued to his arm. He smiled at me as we walked back through the rooms, which was odd, and told me that we had a deal. We'd be getting a total of seven bays, three large and four medium, on the outskirts of the docking area near Garel City proper. On top of that, we would have complete access to the maintenance ordering facilities and would receive the Dock Master's private discount for all parts we need. The docking berths would also come with twelve single-person rooms for the medium bays and large bays, and twenty-four four-person rooms each with their own refreshers for just the large. We were registered under a dummy corporation as a cargo company with three capital ships, four transports, and twelve fast couriers.

He told me to prep the ships for liftoff and he'd be with me in about an hour. The Zabrak woman huffed at him and punched his bicep, which made him amend it to three hours. She shuddered and licked her lips. I answered with my best "Yes, sir" and left. I outranked him.

I decided to walk by the bays we were going to call home and found them near to the central market and tourist area. That meant good cover for anyone wanting to go out on the town. The vendors had a decent list of foods and drinks and there were a couple of entertainment parlors near enough for off-duty walking. There was also a higher-class tower hotel for anyone who got tired of bunking at the spaceport, but the rates were a little steeper than I liked. On top of it, there was a speeder rental business just off the docking lanes.

I got a snack from a vendor while waiting for Tensinel to return and returned just before he did. We changed back into our flight suits, but he told me to keep the combat jumpsuit because I might need a disguise and it fit me. I thanked him and stored it back in its duffel, shoving it behind my seat in the storage compartment.

We were in hyperspace back to the fleet when he broke his self-imposed radio silence to state "you have questions." I told him that was an understatement. It took about a minute for him to respond, but the response was quite surprising.

"I was a bounty hunter and called in a favor."

With that, he cut the comm channel. It explained so very much, both about his skill and why he was so tight lipped with his past. We were silent until we got back to the fleet.

I briefed Commander Sato and Captain Rex. Captain Syndula asked me how I was able to get such a good deal from the Hutt Dock Master and not pay anything. I told her that it was Eleven that got the deal. He said only, "I called in a favor." Rex looked him up and down and said that it was good enough an explanation for him.

Commander Sato opened a broadcast to the fleet and informed them that the next day, we would be setting up our new base during Second Watch on the planet Garel. I could hear the cheering down the hallways of the _Liberator_.


	13. Entry 013

Entry 013: Reigniting New Flames...

This week began in hell, but ended with injured heaven. I'm just thankful that Onebee is on the _Liberator_ or I would either have completely suffocated or have died of some kind of infection. While the former was terrible the later would have been an interesting way to go. But, I'm getting ahead of myself.

The first day on Garel took a little getting used to. Commander Sato shifted our ship's day to the local time of the planet, which meant the entire squadron was on sleep aides for a couple of days. We were no longer pulling rotation patrols, but instead set up a long range patrol roster with strike schedule. And then there was the maintenance duty.

Every single fighter had a list of maintenance short-falls that could choke an astromech. Serim laid out a schedule that didn't take into account missions, off-duty hours, or sleep. Thaema almost mutinied over it because she was told that she couldn't get any food other than ship's rations until she had effectively taken apart and put together her entire fighter. Commander Sato calmed things down by spreading the maintenance schedule from one week to two.

Then there was the pollen. Garel doesn't have much in the way of plant-life, but they do have this mossy sponge that grows everywhere at all times of the year. My first time on the planet, I was fine. My first day landed, I was fine. When I woke up on the second day, it was like I was trying to breathe through a sealed flight suit being held over my mouth and nose.

I saw Onebee about it and he told me that it was a typical reaction for about a quarter of the residents. He gave me a histamine blocker and told me that I would need to either spend the rest of the week inside the _Liberator_ or wearing a full face-shield breath mask. After that, I'd be fine because the histamine would incorporate in my system and the blocker would give me immunity to it. Yeah, neither of those things was happening.

Instead, I spoke with Commander Sato and took a little leave-time I was saving up. Well, it wasn't actually leave time, but more Rebel outreach. He agreed and before noon, I was in a trainer (my fighter was in pieces at the Cresh Hangar) and on my way to Oon.

The trainer was a little touchier than my fighter, and the seat didn't quite feel right. I know it was a standard A-Wing, but it felt slower and the cockpit was just as alien. I guessed it was just because I had gotten used to the cramped cockpit of my fighter and wasn't used to an entire other seat right behind me. I got over it when I dropped out of hyperspace, though.

Oon looked the same as it previously had. It was still an unremarkable dust ball in the middle of nowhere. However, I knew that looks were deceiving. I switched my comm to the BoSS landing frequency for civilian traffic and called for an approach and landing clearance. I was greeted with a feminine droid voice that cleared me for pad three and that my presence was expected.

The spaceport was a far cry from the oasis that I had previously seen. The layout and architecture looked like any other Outer Rim planet, but there was one major difference. In the center of the city was a huge ziggurat. It was five or six levels tall and dwarfed the at most two level tall buildings around it. There were also a series of deep mining pits a couple kilometers north.

I landed and was greeted by a recognizable face. It was the man that was on MaDall's bridge crew in the _Trojan_. He greeted me with a handshake, introduced himself as Jeral, and asked me to follow him. I agreed, dropped my helmet in the cockpit and locked the ship. I was suddenly glad that I was traveling in civilian clothes rather than my flight suit. It felt far hotter closer to the equator than it did at the oasis.

We spoke a little on our way through the busy streets. He was originally from Kaller and the child with the Twi'lek woman from the ship was his nephew. His brother and sister-in-law were killed in a farming accident that the Imperials blamed on the locals. Because of that, he was let go from his job at the spaceport and was picked up by MaDall. The Twi'lek was his wife and she was from Ryloth, but he didn't say much more than that they had met here.

I was wrong about the city looking like any other. From the ground, it was a different story. The houses on the outskirts of town were typical of the slave quarters I saw in holos from Tatooine; there were monitoring towers, and almost everyone were wearing slave collars. I was going to say something to Jeral about it until I saw a man remove his collar, wipe his neck down with a cloth, and put it back on. It was all a ruse.

With that knowledge, I began looking a little closer. I saw that the windows were covered when they would have been opened in an actual slave city. We walked by a door that a woman entered and I felt the cold breeze of a thermal cooler from inside the residence, which would have been an unknown luxury in a true slave city.

As we got further toward the citadel, there were other things that stood out. The cantina we passed had a good mix of various people drinking together. Most were wearing the faux slave collars, but some were not. Instead, they were wearing something that looked like uniforms and had electrowhips on their hips. One was holding the hand of a slave above the table with his other hand on her thigh under the table.

The ziggurat looked even larger from the ground. It was definitely palatial, but it wasn't just a residence. I didn't recognize the text beside the various doors in the main hall, but inside one of them I could see an administrative office. Another open door revealed the space traffic control center, complete with the feminine-looking protocol droid seated in front of the primary sensor station.

The hall was two stories tall with offices lining most of the walkways and the central area completely open for what looked like another two levels. In the middle was the most luxurious fountain I had ever seen in my life. It completely dwarfed the fountain in the Coronet Museum District. I could feel the spray of the water on my face when I entered the central area and it was magnificent.

We took a lift up to the fifth level, walked down a small ornately decorated hallway and through a drape-covered door. I had never been in a throne room before, but this was definitely what I had imagined one looking like (give or take a couple of details).

It was mostly decorated in oranges and golds. The walls, windows, and supports were in a pill-shaped motif that added to the level-and-a-half height of the ceilings. The walls had large paintings of various Zygerrian women that looked enough like MaDall to probably be family. The back wall had four of the pill-shaped windows that tinted the light of the sun gold as it shown through. In front of it, on a four-stepped dais, was the throne. Upon the throne was the most beautiful thing in the room.

MaDall was lounging on the padded seat looking at a datapad and tapping the random command into it. She was in an orange dress with a train that fell all the way down the steps. Jeral and I stood patiently as she finished reading what was on the tablet, entered a final command, and passed it to a Twi'lek girl that was standing obediently beside her.

She looked down the steps at me through half-lidded eyes. I could see her chin come up slightly and saw the gold of her eyes widen just a little as she saw me. A moment later, I caught a gentle whiff of her spiced pheromones.

With my presence recognized, Jeral bowed and exited the room. I likewise bowed and waited for her to formally acknowledge me. Rather than say anything, she rose and stepped down off of the raised throne. She took my hands and looked me over before resting her gaze on my face.

"It's good to see you, Ma…" was all I could get out before she wrapped her arms around me and kissed me deeply. I heard the Twi'lek girl let out a giggle before awkwardly fidgeting with the datapad for the remainder of the embrace.

When she finally allowed me to come up for air, MaDall said that it was also good to see me. I smiled at her as we just stood there staring into each other's eyes. It took me a moment to realize that we were not alone before I cleared my throat and shifted slightly. I asked if she was going to introduce her assistant.

Hearing the title caused the girl to actually laugh. MaDall stared at the girl which sobered her up before introducing her as Kenda. She asked Kenda to take the datapad down to administrative and bring some refreshments for us. Before the girl left the room, MaDall stopped her and said that we would instead be taking lunch early in the dining room. The youth bowed and shot through the door.

The fifth level was the public side of the citadel. I got the full tour. It had the throne room, dining room, a private office, and a couple of suites for guests. Each of the various rooms were just as ornately decorated as the throne room. The dining room, office, and a waiting room each had the four large windows. Each of the rooms was decorated with the same pictures of Zygerrian women. MaDall told me the pictures were the matriarchs of her family line.

We ended the tour in the dining hall. The central feature was a long pill-shaped table with a smaller version of her throne at one end. She motioned me to the chair to the right of the throne and regally took her own seat. I felt under-dressed in my tunic, trousers, and spacer's jacket.

Lunch was light, mostly fruits and steamed vegetables of some kind. There was also a cold-served roast nerf with some kind of a light dressing on it. There was also the same bitter wine as before, but this time I also had a small glass of water that Kenda kept full.

MaDall noticed my glancing at the servant girl standing beside and behind her, rolled her eyes with mirth and told me to interrogate her if it would stop my glances. She joked that she was beginning to get jealous. This sent the child into another fit of giggles.

Kenda was from Lothal. She had lived on the streets her entire life. She was in the process of moving to Tarkintown when MaDall found her. Because Twi'lek servants were seen as a symbol of power, she agreed to be MaDall's personal handmaiden. That was three years ago, and she had been happy ever since.

MaDall was personally teaching her reading, writing, math, and other subjects necessary to become a full personal assistant. She was still too young, and not well versed in the necessary social graces, and her roll of a servant girl was still the perfect cover.

At the end of the meal, MaDall dismissed her with the warning to stay out of trouble. She bowed, took another look at the two of us, and bolted off with another peal of giggling. I heard a scrambling of feet outside the door and Jeral curse lightly at her. A moment later, he entered the dining room, bowed, and handed MaDall another datapad while apologizing for the interruption.

MaDall read it, tapped a couple of notes in, and handed it back to him. She rose a moment later and told me that I had a tour to finish. The smell of the spiced incense was only getting stronger as she led me out of the dining hall by the hand. I'm not sure if it was her palms or mine that were slightly sweaty.

The top level of the palace was her personal suite. It was broken into four rooms, each with its own set of windows. The first was a parlor that had a couple of ornate musical instruments and a half-finished painting of some kind. The second room contained a desk, table, a couple of couches, and looked like an office and small dining room. The third was a bathing room with a raised tub and circulating water jets. Finally, there was her bedroom.

She was right about what she had said on her ship. The bed was indeed as large as her quarters on the _Aurore_ transport. She poured a goblet of water from an vase on the night stand and handed it to me.

The water was sweet and refreshing. She took the goblet back and finished it before sitting it on the table beside the bed. I asked her what she wanted to show me now, not able to remove my eyes from hers. She licked her lips and I heard a feral grown in her throat. A moment later, she pounced me onto the soft mattress and kissed me deeply.

Over the next few of days, we toured the various settlements around Oon. I spoke to the heads of the settlements, answering questions about the Rebels and doing my best to be a recruiter. MaDall quite enjoyed taking the A-Wing trainer, especially when I showed off by flying through one of the canyons in what was once an ocean at full attack speed. Every day ended the same way, though it was definitely not a bad way.

My last day before I had to return to the fleet was one of the most memorable. We didn't do much else but lay in bed together, but it was so relaxing. Though, Kenda wouldn't stop giggling when she brought us breakfast. MaDall just rolled her eyes as she dismissed the youth. At least this trip we actually took the time to eat.

I returned to the fleet refreshed and rejuvenated. I didn't even have any new scars. MaDall made sure to have a medkit on the end table and one of our habits became spraying any new wounds down with bacta after our… activities.

Regardless, I still got a full physical from Onebee and a couple of immune-boosters. He told me that the histamine blocker was finished and that I should be immunized from the pollens, but not to eat or sniff the moss. That wasn't going to be an issue.


	14. Entry 014

Entry 014: How Low Do They Go...

I was returning from a normal patrol when I was rerouted to the _Liberator's_ docking bay. I had Ten continue to the Crech Bay and also told him to handle the flight logs. Force knows I could use a break from those at least once. No better excuse than meeting with Commander Sato to get one.

I landed beside the Corvette and made my way to the briefing room. I was surprised to find Captain Syndula and Lieutenant Commander Olis waiting for me with Commander Sato. It was always a refreshing change to speak to Captain Syndula because she was more laid back than the normal officers. However, their news of a revised patrol schedule was definitely welcome.

Each Group would have one day off, one day on patrols, and one day on missions. If there were no missions, then that Group would instead be on maintenance detail. This allowed most of the grumbling of not enough free time to enjoy Garel to quiet down and allowed some of the pilots of unwind from their hectic schedule (or take leave to do their own thing).

It was a quick briefing, and I gave my report of the recruitment efforts in the Oon system. I neglected to tell them that the majority of the time was spent on 'leisure activities' with MaDall. However, I got a couple of good leads that Commander Sato said he would forward to Ahsoka to check out.

After a quick follow-up visit with Onebee to remove the bacta wraps from my back, I took back off and went to Cresh. I landed and saw that Serim, Olivar, and Korra were all working on Thaema's fighter. With nothing else better to do, I took off my chest box and helmet and helped.

Serim was halfway inside the housing for the starboard engine assembly. The various parts that used to occupy that void were currently in eight neat piles behind the thrust vector fin. Her legs were hanging out of the housing on either side of the fin as she did something inside that echoed in an odd way.

I saw a tool fly out of the housing and heard her call for a hydrospanner. I picked it out of her toolbox and handed it to her before replacing the previous tool in its slot. This lasted for three more tools before she let out a heavy sigh and started to extricate herself from housing. That's when I had to physically bite my lip to keep from laughing.

Somehow, in getting to the position she was in, she ended up blocking herself in with the fin. No matter how much she tried shifting and crawling around, she couldn't get her legs on the same side of the fin to pull herself out. Moreover, the growing volume of the profanity coming from the engine housing caught the attention of the other two working on the forward sensors.

I leaned down and peeked into the housing with a huge smile. I asked if I could be of any assistance and she gave me a very unladylike gesture, but it was fitting with the language she was using. I just stood there, arm resting on the upper housing, while I waited for her to finally give up and ask for help.

She slumped her head against the bottom of the housing and finally said yes. I asked if it was really so hard and had to jump back to avoid her kick. Instead, I just grabbed her foot and slid the boot off. She complained for a moment before realizing that the only thing keeping her in place was the heel.

Serim did kick me in the shin with her bare foot before snatching the boot back. She then began telling me which parts to hand her first to rebuild the engine assembly. After a while, I was on my back under the thruster with Serim standing over me, both of us working to get the engine back together.

I noticed a decided lack of banter coming from the couple at the front of the fighter. I glanced up to see Olivar with one hand inside the forward array and the other somewhere in the vicinity of the inside of Korra's upper thigh. I rolled my eyes and barked out in my best Taskmaster voice "HAND CHECK!"

The pilot jumped, his head impacting the underside of the fighter. Korra jumped, her feet completely leaving my view from under the bird. The tool she was using began a slow clanging descent before landing powerpack first right in the middle of Olivar's nose.

Serim and I laughed as we finished up reassembling the engine. She told me that the primary oscillator went out and was causing micro-fractures in the fuel slug line. It wasn't enough to cause a leak, but if one of the micro-fractures actually opened, it would have blown the entire engine and detonated the fuel slug. In other words: it was something that needed to be immediately fixed.

I stood and stretched as Serim heaved a heavy sigh while looking at my fighter. I knew that the damn port laser assembly needed another rebuild. I saw a container toward the fuel line for my ship that was about the right size for the entire traversing mount. It would need to be unpackaged and cleaned, and I could tell that's what Serim planned to do.

I snaked a couple fingers up under the back of her tech vest to stop her from leaving. She turned her head with narrowed eyes that could have been blasters from the glare. I asked her how long it had been since she took an evening off. She sighed again and said it had been four days as she slowly pulled my fingers from under her best before turning and crossing her arms.

I told her that if she didn't take at least an evening off, she was going to start making mistakes. She was about to respond when I simply glanced down at her boot. Some word tried to crawl out of her open mouth, but it only peeked with the beginning of some syllable.

Olivar walked up to us, arm around Korra, and suggested that we all hit the Starside Cantina. It wasn't anything too fancy, food and beverages, and it was within walking distance. She reluctantly agreed and, before she could get the entire sentence out of her mouth, Korra was dragging her toward the Tech Suites talking about what they were going to wear. She yelled back that they'd meet us in an hour.

I briefed Olivar on the new patrol schedule and saw that the bulletin board in the Pilot suites was already updated. I took a shower, changed into my civilian clothes, and headed back out to the hangar. On the way, my comlink buzzed with an announcement from Commander Sato. The planet Riin needed generators and he asked that any off-duty personnel look for some in the markets. I heard the girls behind us as I said we'd check out some of the vendors. Serim said there was one not too far from the Cantina and Korra said we could stop there after dinner.

I turned and my mouth fell open as wide as my eyes. Serim was no longer in her gray coveralls and black vest. Instead, she was in a loose-fitting seafoam green coverall that accentuated her slightly darker skintone. It was belted at the waist and she had a pair of light shoes that matched the belt. What caught my attention were the hexagonal tattoos that ran from her temples, down her neck and what looked like down her chest. They also split at her neck to run down her shoulders to stop just above her wrists.

The Imperial Academy xeno-sociology classes were poor, at best. Mostly they taught you which species were dangerous and which weren't. If the species wasn't dangerous, it was usually relegated to a single line in the reading material and maybe a single multiple-choice question on a test. However, what it didn't cover was the cosmetic habits of near-human species.

During dinner, I asked Serim about her tattoos. Korra was also curious, but was being distracted by the missing hand of Phoenix Ten under the table. So, Serim explained what the tattoos were and what they represented for her people. It was quite intriguing, actually. I made the comment that she must have had a great deal of skill to amass so many and asked how far down they extended. She smiled and told me that I might find out if I play my cards right.

We perused the merchant district after dinner for generators. A couple of merchant stalls, a couple of pawn shops, and one warehouse guarded by some rather large Faleen that Serim did all the talking in. We scored a total of thirteen generators from the merchant district and what I only assumed was a Black Sun run arm of the black market. Olivar and Korra volunteered to take the generators down to the _Liberator's_ landing bay. That left Serim and I to continue browsing the market.

I found an upgrade for my blaster's scope and Serim found some used power converters. As we looked, she noticed me a couple times glancing down the plunging neckline of her top. She always smiled, shifted ever so slightly and continued what she was doing. At one point, she finally pulled me aside and used a finger to pull the neckline to the side showing off the line of tattoos down the top of her chest. She didn't expose herself, but did the same to the other side.

With a smile, she told me that she showed me hers and it was time for me to show her mine. I was about to ask what she was talking about, but the color of my face must have gotten more information out than my mouth. She giggled and said she was talking about whatever kind of necklace I was wearing. She said that she had seen it sparkling a few times and she was as curious of it as I was of her tattoos.

I told her that I would, but not in the crowd. So, I guided her to a quiet tapcafe with a performer whose species I couldn't quiet place quietly singing a very enchanting melody in front of a Bith on the Kloo Horn. We took a booth and ordered a couple of drinks from a Rodian server. After listening to the melody for a bit, I pulled out my crystal and handed it to her.

She stared at it for quite some time, like she was memorizing every little facet on it. At one point, she squinted and pulled it closer. She pulled a small stylus-torch out and back-lit it dimly while staring. She cupped her hand around it and slowly handed it back to me. Her hand lingered on mine longer than was necessary and asked me if I knew what it was. So, I told her the story of how I found it.

I didn't know it was called a kyber crystal. Serim's aunt was a Jedi and she remained close to the family after having been taken by the Jedi Order. It was not normal for Jedi, but something that most Mirialan Jedi did. I was about to ask something, but she put her finger to my lips while glancing around at the various spacers and locals in the tapcafe. She said we'd need a bit more privacy before discussing things further.

We ended up in a room not too far from where the hangar was located. It was clean, actually reeking of industrial cleanser and some citrus fruit smell, but wasn't much larger than the pilot suites. It had a pair of chairs in from of a small window that overlooked the city. The bed was large, but a little bit harder than I was used to. One of the lights didn't work, so it was eerily dim (or romantically, if you looked at it from that way).

I don't know how long we actually spoke. We talked about her people, her youth, some of the more memorable stories behind her tattoos. We spoke of the crystal, life on Corellia outside of the Academy (she had never been there), and about my youth. Toward the end, the alcohol started taking its toll on us.

I called Ten, but he didn't pick-up, so I notified the _Liberator_ that I was rooming off-post. The comms operator said there were no flights scheduled for Cresh, so I was good to go. I left a message on Olivar's comm to make sure the squad did maintenance and that I would be back by mid-afternoon. If there was no maintenance, there was always carbon scoring that could be scraped off of the fighters and maybe some fresh paint. Serim did the same, but her second in command answered and she told them to continue through the maintenance rotation.

The chair was far more comfortable than the A-Wing pilot's couch, so I told Serim that she could take the bed. She rolled her eyes and told me that we were both consenting adults who could sleep together without actually sleeping together. She also smiled and told me that she had one last question of mine to answer before we turned in.

The answer was quiet obvious. Except for one small area obscured by her undergarments, they went down her torso to end up on the outside of her legs at about her waist and ended just above her knees with the right having one more hex than the left. Other than that, she had a very athletic build and the green was uniform all over.

She told me to strip down too, all but my briefs as she gave me a similar once-over. She walked behind me and made a comment before running her fingertips lightly over the most recent set of scars by MaDall. She said that I should look at getting her a pair of gloves, but I said that maybe I liked being a scratch post. She laughed and dug her finger into my side just below my ribs making me jump away with a start. I hate being ticklish.

Sometime in the night, we went from sleeping beside each other to actually cuddling. I woke up with her using my arm as a pillow and clasping my other hand tightly between her… I mean to her chest. She slowly roused, arching her back against me and suggestively wriggling her hips against mine asking if I usually kept… well, I'm not going to put our conversation in the journal. Nothing happened, but the conversation was far from innocent.

We each took turns in the shower, even though the water-pressure was terrible and the hot setting was more of a less frigid setting. We ate breakfast at the Starview Cantina, even though it was more of a late-lunch by the time we got there. Then, we made our way back to Cresh's bay.

Olivar gave me a leaning quizzical look and asked what went on with us last night. I palmed his face and pushed it away saying that we were just adults staying out late. I asked about him, and he said that he decided to go to bed early. I brought up the bite mark just above his collar and he proudly declared that he never said it was his bed. Korra kicked him in the calf from under the fighter she was working on.

I was back in my coveralls and vest and had unboxed the ordered mount by the time Serim got back in her work uniform. After that, we began the replacement of the port laser assembly and I was saying a silent prayer to any deity that was listening that this one wouldn't be as buggy as the last one.

After the laser, Serim decided to rip out my entire hyperdrive. That put my fighter down for the next day's patrol and a strike mission the day after against an Imperial probe satellite. But, the checklist that had built on my fighter was completely taken care of by the end of the week.

Commander Sato ended up calling just as Serim and I got my canopy back on after servicing the actuators. He informed me that Cresh would be pulling escort for the _Liberator_ as it delivered the generators to Riin next week and that I should make sure all fighters are prepared. I acknowledged.

That night, I took the entire Group out for dinner at the cantina, to include Serim's tech crew. The next day would be grueling with maintenance, so we all needed to blow off some steam and get some good food. Thaema even danced some with some random spacer.


	15. Entry 015

Entry 015: Mercy Mission...

Final maintenance on the fighters felt like it took forever. Everyone's nerves were on edge and I could tell from my pilots' stances that they were already going over the mission in the heads. We all had the initial briefing about what would be happening, and the timeline it was going to happen in, but that didn't stop any of us from wanting it to happen this very moment.

I got a comm from Commander Sato that they were doing final loading that the briefing would be that evening. Serim and I finished up on my fighter, the new laser armature was working perfectly, and assisted with the final maintenance on Tensinel's ship.

It was perfect timing. We had just finished the last of the adjustments to Thaema's engine, the last thing we needed to do on any of the fighters, when Commander Sato sent a comm. The tech crew was ordered to finish loading operations of _Transport One_ and we were ordered to the briefing room on the _Liberator_.

I was surprised to not see any of the Specters at the briefing. Commander Sato said they had their own mission, something involving infiltrating a Star Destroyer, and that it would just by Cresh and _Transport One_ on this mission.

The briefing was fairly straight forward. We'd equip for cold weather prior to launch so we wouldn't freeze to death on the ice planet. We'd do a single jump diversion through the Lothal system before jumping to Rinn in order to do a broad sensor scan of the system. We'd land in one of the Rebel cell caves and unload the generators. With that done, we'd jump out to one of the uninhabited systems and then back to Garel.

The next morning, things were oddly calm. There wasn't even a wind coming through the open skyport of the landing bay. Serim brought us all red parkas and I had to adjust my vest to fit over it. She also was nice enough to dial down the temperature controls in the cockpit so none of us would sweat to death in transit. We had all finished out pre-flight checks and the fighters were humming in standby when Commander Sato gave the go-ahead.

We met up with _Transport One_ in the skylanes, the entire group having to divert because of an Imperial Light Cruiser doing a patrol over the city. It took us ten minutes to get out of the transit zone of the planet for a jump to hyperspace. A few minutes after that, we were in Lothal.

 _Transport One_ had the best sensors, so Cresh was only paying attention to the immediate vicinity. There wasn't even a baby Neebray on the scopes. After a few minutes, we received the order from the Corvette to jump to Rinn.

Unfortunately, we came out of hyperspace just as an Imperial patrol was making its way through the system. I didn't hear the conversation going on between the Gozanti and Alderaan cruisers, but definitely registered the power spike of the weapons coming online.

The Gozanti launched its four TIEs and _Transport One_ sent us the target information. We were going one-on-one with the fighters while the capital ships had their brawling match. I acknowledged and ordered the ships to go head-on with shields double front.

My fighter scored a couple of solid hits to my shields before I turned it into a debris field. The others were similarly lucky. Well, almost. Eleven's opponent survived a little longer than the others before being wasted. It was close enough that Tensinel flew straight through the debris field. I actually saw the flash as his shields completely blew out.

I ordered him to hang back while the rest of the group strafed the Gozanti. My sensors read it as the _Peregrine_ after my first pass. We weakened its shields in time for _Transport One_ to get in range. It didn't last much longer after that.

It's an odd thing to witness a capital ship duel from the cockpit of a fighter. We dance around space like Terrelian Jango Jumpers, relying on our maneuverability and skill to keep us alive. Capital ships, on the other hand, act like Gamorreans. They wade by, angling their hulls to protect weakened areas, while beating on each other hoping for a vital blow.

This time it was our Gamorrean what won. The Gozanti, the entire rear of the ship now part of an expanding cloud of burned armor, was slowly tumbling into the atmosphere of Rinn. I saw a single escape pod shoot out toward the horizon. I guess some of the crew would live to fight another day.

The first thing I notices after landing was how quiet Rinn was. The cave we were in was protected from the elements, but it was still eerily silent. The second thing I noticed was that I was definitely not dressed for the planet, even with the parka. I could tell you exactly how I realized that, but it would be a little embarrassing… especially for a man.

With the assistance of the Rinn Rebel cell, offloading the generators only took half an hour. We were then treated to hot caf and a profuse helping of warm thanks for another half hour.

Tensinel did what he could for his fighter, but his hyperdrive had blown out with his shields. That meant he'd have to link up with the Alderaan Cruiser in orbit before we jumped. It wasn't a big deal, but it could be if the Gozanti sent out a distress signal before it blew.

We broke orbit just in time to see an Imperial Light Cruiser exit hyperspace. Eleven docked with the ventral hatch as the rest of the group prepared a defensive screen for the capital ship. _Transport One_ wasn't having any of it, though. We received the order to jump to hyperspace before the cruiser could even launch its fighters.

The trip back to Garel was boring. I took care of most of my datawork there in the cockpit before we exited hyperspace the first time. Thankfully, I wasn't the only one thinking ahead. The rest of the group, to include Eleven, shot me their reports and I went over them and prepared a packet to send to the _Liberator_ when we landed.

Serim was pissed at Tensinel. She asked him how he could damage HER fighter during a blue milk run. He opened his mouth to answer her, but she cut him off. Even though he technically outranked her, she ordered him to make retribution by helping her replace his hyperdrive and shield systems before he was free to go.

Tensinel, for his part, just nodded at her and looked at the edge of the bay. He said that the date would have to wait. That's when one of the shadows from the evening sunset separated itself from the wall.

The Tatataki woman from the Hutt's mansion was standing in a black unitard with a black cape over it. She dropped the hood of the cape and glanced at the fighter, completely oblivious to the fact that Therim and Olivar both had their blasters trained on her.

She let out a sigh and glanced at Serim. She asked if she could be of assistance to make his "internment" go quicker. Serim shrugged and asked if she was any good with a hydrospanner. The Ratataki woman huffed out a laugh and tossed me her cape as if I were one of her servants. She picked up a tool and removed the armor panel over the hyperdrive faster than I've even seen Serim do it.


	16. Entry 016

Entry 016: Friend or faux...

I was cleared by Commander Sato to do another "recruiting run" to Oon this week. Things were generally quiet, especially with Eleven down. We were waiting on the proper hyperdrive for his ship and Cresh was red-lined until he was up. So, I was able to visit MaDall.

I arrived in the evening and was met at the spaceport by Jeral. The city was quieter than normal, but there were still people around. He explained that the mines ran three separate crews at all hours. Even then, about half of the small shop stalls were closed, but the bars were all open and mostly full.

MaDall met me in her office rather than throne room. I thought it was because she no longer felt the need to impress me. I knew I was wrong the moment I walked in. On her table was a literal mountain of datapads. She was reading through some and so was Kenda. Rather than jotting notes like MaDall, she was separating the datapads into a pile between her and the Zygerrian and another pile on the opposite side.

I cleared my throat from the door and MaDall told me to leave the newest batch and get out. I said that I could come back another time if she was busy. The moment she heard my voice, her ears lifted and she smiled.

MaDall stood, stretching with a couple of pops from immobility and strode across the room to enwrap me in a tight embrace. I noticed Kenda roll her eyes a moment before my vision was filled with the golden lights of MaDall's.

She refilled her water and placed a full cup beside Kenda. There had been a mine collapse and they were both going through the miner reports to assess the damage. I took off my jacket and asked if I could help. MaDall smiled and pointed to the mountain in the middle of the table.

It took five hours to go through the entire stack. I had to read through each one and anything that stood out got highlighted and placed between MaDall and I, anything else got put on the other side. A server droid brought us all food sometime in the middle of the stack.

I picked up a very interesting piece of information as I was reading through the various reports. I finally learned exactly what was being mined on Oon. They were mining Doonium. It was rare and used in starship hulls. That explained why the Empire kept their distance and didn't question any of the markups MaDall sold it to them at.

We finished going through the reports and she pulled me out of the room. I noticed that Kenda had fallen asleep sometime and was softly snoring with her head on the table. MaDall's bed was softer than I remembered it and we slept through the night and most of the next day. It wasn't until we were awoken by Kenda with lunch that either of us stirred.

After lunch, we did more than just sleep. I won't get into it, because some things should remain in memories. I know that my journal is still read by Rebel Intelligence, so just use your imagination and make it 20% hotter.

Around dinner time, we finally left MaDall's lair to finish up the reports. Instead of finding the previous evening's mountain of datapads, the table held only one. Kenda had finished going through the stack and summarized all of the pertinent data into a single pad for MaDall to read. She thanked Kenda for her good work as we ate dinner and then retired back to her quarters to… talk more about the weather.

The sirens began just a little after dawn. They roused my mind just enough for me to hear the door to MaDall's suite open. I shot to my feet and pulled my blaster from its holster beside the bed. The lights came on and I saw Kenda standing by the door, her eyes completely wide and a blush creeping up her face and down her lekku.

It took my recently awakened brain a moment to realize that she wasn't staring at my blaster, but at my… well, I grabbed the sheet off the bed and held it around myself as I holstered my weapon.

MaDall had a sly smile at the scene, but then her ears perked and her eyes darted between myself and Kenda. I was going to ask what was going on when the unmistakable howl of a pair of TIE fighters rattled through the ziggurat's summit. I ran to the window and saw that the two fighters were pulling a proximity patrol for a landing shuttle.

I turned back to MaDall to ask what was happening when she threw me a strange deep red-purple outfit and snapped for me to put it in. She was mumbling something under her breath in a hissing growl as Kenda helped her put on the regal outfit from the first time I saw her.

My outfit was much different. It consisted of trousers, boots, gloves, and a knee-length tunic. There was a pair of gold gauntlets, the left one with a jeweled stud on it, and a leather-like blast vest with gold detailing. MaDall gave me a once over as she handed me a helmet. I donned it as she attached a slavers whip to my belt.

We boarded the elevator and she told me to keep my mouth shut and refer to her only as "mi'lady." I also noticed that Kenda had taken on a new guise. Her eyes were downcast, her smile disappeared, and she slouched over while holding her hands in front of her.

We exited the elevator and MaDall ordered me to stand beside her throne and to again not say anything. I nodded with a courteous "as you wish, mi'lady." She smiled through half-closed eyelids at me, making my heart skip a beat. She then called out if all of the preparation were in place. The disembodied voice of a droid announced that they were, and the holo-conference was both live and currently audio-only.

I was about to ask what was going on when I heard the most unmistakable sound in the world. It was a sound I hadn't heard since I was aboard the _Despot_. It was the rhythmic clacking of stormtrooper armor as they walked in formation. I ground my teeth and tried my best to keep the sneer off of my lips when the group entered. Instead, I tucked my thumbs into my belt, the slaver whip pushing against my right palm.

There were six of them in total. The first two entered the room and stopped, scanning it, before they moved to either side of the door. The one on the left was looking directly at me. A moment later, four more entered with an Imperial Officer in their midst.

The officer was a commander, but he was young. He had brown hair and eyes and a youthful grin on his face. The moment he entered, I smelled something new coming from MaDall. It was not the pleasant and intoxicating pheromone that I was used to. This one smelled more like burned cinnamon.

He greeted her with a bow as he waved his escort off. They both walked back and tool up position on either side of the two at the door, two sets of eyes now on me. She nodded to him and asked why he was making an unexpected visit.

He was oozing politeness in the most upper-crust Coruscani accent I have ever heard. There were rumors around the fleet that some command officers had purchased their promotions through bribes and family influence, but they were always just rumors. Seeing this young man in control of his own ship, his age not much more than my own, told me that the rumors were true.

He said that he was checking up on her to make sure her production would meet the needs of the Empire. She assured him that they would. He smiled again and told her that he was glad to hear it, and that the Empire would be looking forward to its twenty-five loads of Doonium in the next week. I could hear MaDall's tight smile as she said that the number was only twenty loads. The officer smiled and said that he was altering the deal she had with the Admiralty.

MaDall made a motion with her hand and Kenda shot out the door as quickly as she could without actually running. A few moments later, she returned with a tray that carried a bottle of MaDall's wine and two glasses. MaDall took one and Kenda moved to offer the other to the Imperial Officer. He accepted it.

She told Commander Ferris that the deal was ten loads every week, shipping out bi-weekly. He was quite genial when he said that he was raising the number because he needed the extra pull with his superiors. She told him that she cared not what pull he had with whom in the Empire and that her mines were already worked around the clock.

He smiled icily at her and told her that he could always declare the planet an Imperial control zone and take over the mining himself. He motioned back at the stormtroopers and said that he had alternative motivators for her slaves. MaDall said that blasters could only motivate someone to thinking they were already dead making them not work as hard in hopes that the death is quick.

He laughed and I imagined myself using the deactivated whip to choke the life from his overly-long neck. He told her that he didn't care how she did it, but she would deliver twenty-five loads to him next week or the Star Destroyer might have a weapons malfunction that would wipe her capital off the face of the planet.

She smiled and said that without her command and control network, the slave collars across the planet would deactivate and it would be a mighty mess for the Empire to receive no shipments of Doonium from Oon. She finished it with how it probably wouldn't look too good on the Commander's record.

He reached out the now-empty glass and let it fall to the floor, shattering. He looked down at it and said that any mess could be easily cleaned if you have the proper motivation and tools. He then bowed to her again and walked out of the room. The stormtroopers filed out behind him before taking their positions once more in the hall.

There was a long moment of silence after the sound of the armor stopped, a subtle grinding of doors opening on the lift, more clattering, and then the doors closing. I looked over at MaDall and started to ask something when she screamed "silence!"

That's when I noticed the blinking button on the arm of her throne that I had simply thought was a jewel. She pressed it and I heard the unmistakable whine of a holoprojector. Resolving mere centimeters from where the Commander had been was another Imperial officer. This one was wearing the white tunic of Imperial intelligence and his rank read as Colonel.

She asked him if that was all he needed. The older gentleman nodded and glanced over at Kenda who had approached the broken glass. MaDall glared at the young Twi'lek and told her that she gave no such instruction to clean. Her hand firmly came down on the arm of her throne.

The moment the button was pressed, the girl reached for the shock collar on her neck and writhed before falling to the floor and panting. MaDall, not even paying attention to her, told the Colonel that she would be down to the communications room directly to speak to him. She pressed the button, ending the holo-conference and looked me in the eyes. She glanced at Kenda and told me to take care of her and wait for me in the office. She then stood and left the room, avoiding the broken glass on the floor.

The moment she walked out of the room, I leaped down and lifted Kenda off of the fetal pile on the floor. When I lifted her, one of her hands shot out behind my head and pulled me into a kiss. I pulled her away with a look of confusion before I finally saw her face. It was not the face of pain or subjugation, but the face of pleasure.

MaDall knew exactly what was going to happen. The crafty minx planned for me to be embarrassed, probably as punishment for my speaking out of turn. I helped Kenda to her wobbly legs and assisted her in cleaning the glass off of the floor. She walked back over beside the throne and stood waiting patiently, though I noticed her eyeing the red button and licking her lips.

I was about to ask if she knew how long MaDall would be when the girl reached out and pressed the button herself. The moan that came from her sounded pained, but I could tell she was using all of her fading control to keep her hand on the red button. I reached over and slapped her hand away from it, the shock ablating on my leather glove. She fell to the floor, panting. After a moment, she smiled up at me weakly and told me that I could use the whip next time if she was being bad.

Before I could say anything, MaDall walked back into the room and almost collapsed into her throne. I walked around and poured her another glass of her wine, making sure to step over the almost purring form of her handmaiden. She accepted it with a weak smile and downed it in a way that most pilots would down a shot of Corellian Whisky.

After another minute, and a refill of her glass, MaDall finally spoke. She apologized for what I had witnessed. She looked down at Kenda and told the girl to go get herself cleaned up. The young girl nodded weakly and made her way out of the throne room. She was in the hall when MaDall smiled up at me and pushed the red button on her throne. I heard the near scream and collapse, followed a few minutes later by a breathless "thank you, mi'lady."

I looked at MaDall with wide eyes, too many questions in my head to settle on just one. Instead, I just looked at the red button and back up at her. She laughed in that same musical tone from when I had first met her and told me that Kenda's was the only collar that was actually activated, but it was set at the lowest level. She gave me a once over and told me that I wasn't the only one with strange fetishes. I was about to protest when she dragged her claws lightly over the arm of her throne.

We adjourned to her study where she set a glass of some kind of alcohol in front of me. She told me that she had complained to Commander Ferris' superiors a few months prior when he had made "inappropriate advances" toward her. He wasn't interested in her, though, but in acquiring the mines from her. At first, there was no word from the Imperials about the complaints, and then she was contacted by Imperial Intelligence.

She had first feared that they learned of her dealing with the Rebels, but the agent that contacted her never brought it up. He was more concerned with the production of Doonium that came from the mines and keeping that production going. That's the reason she was allowed to work autonomously and collect "slaves" from Imperial-controlled worlds. She said that the Colonel even knew that she was not keeping the populations as slaves, but he didn't care because she continued to ship out Doonium. However, he also told her that his understand wouldn't equate to others understanding.

In the end, Imperial Intellignce believed the Commander was trying to shake down Doonium mines for his own sales to the Empire, lining his pockets at the expense of guaranteed production. What happened today should have been happening in another week when the Star Destroyer came around to pick up the shipment.

Kenda entered and had breakfast with her. She was still flushed and her half-lidded eyes said that she probably did more than just clean up before bringing breakfast. She asked if MaDall needed anything else, to which the Zygerrian sighed heavily. She was ordered back to her room and not to come back out until she had "finished" cleaning up. Kenda looked at me again, blushing heavily down both lekku, bowed and ran out of the room. MaDall gave me a sly look to which I just put my hands up in mock innocence and took a bite of the food.

I asked if Commander Ferris would be a problem anymore, to which MaDall gave a very feral grin. She said that Commander Ferris was being reassigned to patrol the border of Wild Space. His rotation would last for about the next three years, at least. I then asked how much Doonium Oon was actually producing, since it was also selling to the Rebels. She smiled with true mirth and said twenty-five loads every two weeks, with five full loads going to the Rebels.

After lunch we returned to her quarters. I had become aware that her pheromones were getting quite strong during our conversation. I was about to take the helmet off when she stopped me. Before I could say something, she physically threw me onto her bed and pounced. She told me that the helmet made me look Zygerrian. I was about to say something when my voice was replaced with her mouth. The one thing I will say, though, is that the armor kept her from gouging into my skin, except on a couple of places where she was really trying.

I spent another two days on Oon. One of the things I did was arrange for a Rebel transport to come pick up any recruits who wanted to join. There were about fifty of them from all over the planet. I also told her that I would be back in about another month for more "recruiting."

While we kissed goodbye, I realized why we were burning so brightly. I'm a pilot; my life expectancy is only as long as my skill to avoid the lasers. She's in a dance with Imperial Intelligence that could shatter her entire operation wide open and brand her a traitor to the Empire. We're both living on borrowed time, thus we both get our comfort where we can… from each other.

She told me that on my next visit, she'd teach me how to use an electro-whip. I said that it was a deal, as long as it didn't involve Kenda. She smiled and said that the young Twi'lek was quite eager to volunteer her services as a target. We had a laugh about that and then kissed again. Then, I left.

It was another long flight back to Garel. I was locked in the cockpit with the taste of her lips and smell of her scent bringing with it pleasant memories. I was snapped out of my reverie when I exited hyperspace, though. Rather than a clear path to Garel, I was blocked by a Star Destroyer.

One of the commtechs opened a channel with me and demanded to know my mission, destination, and where I had come from. I forwarded the faked delivery service credentials I had, told the operator I was returning to my home base on Garel from a delivery to Oon. My hyperspace logs were scanned and I was cleared to proceed, but got an up-close escort of a pair of TIE fighters until I got passed the massive bulk of the capital ship.

The rest of the week was relatively uneventful, except that Eleven's hyperdrive showed up. I helped Serim install it as I related to the Group and techs the details of my trip. Thaema seemed confused about Kenda's electro-fetish, but one of the techs explained it to her… in a little more detail than most of us thought was normal knowledge. When questioned, the tech just smiled and said that her first boyfriend was good with an electro-whip.


	17. Entry 017

Entry 017: Another Empty Bunk...

This has been one hell of a week. It saw both good and bad, promotions and death. In the end, we succeeded in saving lives, built up the Rebel arsenal, and found a new ally. However, it came at the cost of an entire ship and a talented pilot. But, I'm getting ahead of myself.

Aurek took off early in the week with _Transport One_. Theirs was a relief mission to pick up some supplies at a deep space rendezvous and then drop them to the planet Ibaar. We'd received some reports from that system about the Empire cutting food supplies and that the general health of the population was suffering. So, we decided to actually care for the citizens of the Empire, unlike the bucket-heads of the Imperial military.

I wished them luck over the comm system before the jumped, because Cresh had its own mission. We were escorting _Transport Two_ to pick up some wayward cargo. Sometimes when Imperial fleets prepare for large-scale operations, they set up a resupply drop in the middle of nowhere. Well, Besh found one such drop in an uninhabited system during one of their patrols. Whatever it was, it was soon to benefit the Rebels of Phoenix Squadron.

We jumped in and ran a quick scan of the area. _Transport Two_ showed the entire system as clean except for the supply cache. So, I set up a rotational patrol with Ten pulling close proximity to the corvette, Eleven and Twelve pulling middle, and me running scans on the various containers for the Alderaan Cruiser to decide what they wanted to add to the shopping list.

After a few minutes, and myself and a former Imperial crewman onboard _Transport Two_ comparing notes, I decided that the supply cache was from an Imperial cruiser squadron. Star Destroyers would have ample storage for most of the food-stuffs that were in the containers, there were too few starfighter parts, and the wrong munitions types for the larger capital ships.

Crewman Kennis said that it was more than likely a Corvette squadron, but I disagreed. I felt rather vindicated, and gave the former bridge crewman an "I told you so" over the comms, when an Imperial Light Cruiser Squadron jumped into the area: two _Arquitens_ -class and four _Gozanti_ transports.

We had collected about three-quarters of the supply cache when the commander of _Transport Two_ decided we had enough. She began pulling away and send out orders to screen them while they jumped. I hadn't even given the order when Twelve pulled into an attack formation and blew the remaining cargo containers. Eleven came in after her and finished off the one container that she missed.

On the trip back to our staging area, a place the fleet called Deep Space One, I asked Thaema what she thought she was doing. She sounded unsure for a moment before she told me that if we couldn't get the supplies then it would be best that the Empire not be able to use them, either. I let her stew for a few seconds before congratulating her and linking the Comm with Transport Two to make an announcement. Thaema was being promoted to Flight Officer.

We got back to the fleet, but I could tell something was wrong. A visual inspection showed the squadron was one fighter down and one transport short. We landed aboard the _Liberator_ and I gave my report to Commander Sato. That's when I found out that Phoenix One bought the homestead over Ibaar thanks to some Imperial Security Bureau bootlicker named Kallus.

Cresh's patrol rotation came up and we were flying patrol around the fleet. As soon as we launched, Phoenix Two and Five landed aboard the command ship for the briefing. I was there in spirit, and listening over the comms.

Captain Syndula said that we needed to finish the mission to Ibaar and I found myself nodding in agreement. She said that we try again with the remaining transports, _Transport Two_ and another one that had already been dispatched from Alderaan.

Master Jarrus said that the planet wouldn't last another week without the fleet's help. From what I heard, the Empire was testing a new work project on the planet to see how much they could squeeze without the population dying or having the strength to rebel and still produce for the Imperial war machine. Commander Sato said that the fleet wouldn't be enough to match the blockade. Then, Captain Rex brought his cards to the table.

There was an engineer he had been in contact with that was building a new kind of fighter, specifically designed to break blockades. The downside was that it was on the planet Shantipole, which drew complaints from both Phoenix Two and Five. I'd only ever heard of the planet in rumors, but if even half of those rumors were to be believed, it was bad. We're talking Dreighton Triangle bad, but without the ghost stories.

Kanan volunteered Hera to make the run. If anyone could have done it, it definitely would be her. I'd seen her flight sim scores and they were the absolute highest I had ever seen in either the Rebels or the Empire. Commander Sato agreed.

The _Ghost_ launched shortly after the briefing ended. After dropping the _Phantom_ off at Shantipole, Master Jarrus would be swinging by Garel. We needed another set of supplies for the people of Ibaar and we needed them quickly. That meant going through the Black Market. Kanan said something about a favor he was owed from someone named Vizago. As long as it meant a successful mission, he could call in a favor from an Imperial Moff for all I cared.

The Alderaan Cruiser _Surprise_ showed up shortly before the Ghost returned. At about the same time, we received a long-range transmission from Ibaar. The Empire was literally starving the people to death; they had cut the remaining rations. It made me absolutely sick how cruel the Empire could be when they were supposed to be helping the people.

The Ghost returned and Commander Sato filled Kanan in on what was going on. It was the Jedi that made the snap decision to launch without Captain Syndulla's new fighter. He'd keep the cargo aboard the more maneuverable transport and let the two corvettes pull an escort. Both of the CR90's had their port and starboard docking collars replaced with turbolaser emplacements, so they were pretty much oversized gunships. Adding Cresh's firepower (Besh was still on their patrol run around the edge of the sector), and we could break any blockade.

We came out of hyperspace in sector nine, hoping that having the Primary to our back would give a better angle to the planet. Unfortunately, as is the habit with a blockade fleet, they simply put themselves between us and our target. My scopes showed three light cruisers and two transports. That meant we'd only have eight TIEs to worry about.

Transport Two took the lead to block for the Ghost. I was in front of the corvette with Ten running amidships and the other two screening the transport. Our primary job would be to deal with any fighters while the capital ships would take on the larger ships.

Tensinel was the first to detect the fighter launched and warned the fleet. I ordered all fighters to angle front and pick their targets. Harassing fire only until they passed us, then to break and engage by pairs. Unfortunately, three TIEs all targeted Twelve on their initial pass. She didn't even scream over the comms as her fighter disintegrated.

The cruisers tightened their formation in the Ghost's path as we broke to deal with the fighters. I broke and targeted one of the ships that shot down Twelve. I don't know if it was luck or just skill, but we all targeted a separate fighter responsible for her death and took them out without even missing a shot.

Spectre 1 said that his approach vector was cut off and that he was swinging around to try another direction. Just then, we got a comm message from Captain Syndulla. She said she's take care of the cruiser. I registered a new blip on my sensors that then turned into two. The _Phantom_ had the new fighter piggy-backed.

The fighter passed me and I noticed a couple of things. First, it looked like some kind of ancient sword, complete with a crossguard. The second thing I noticed is that it was the ugliest and gaudiest color I had ever seen in my entire life. Spectre 2 requested some room, acknowledged by Spectre 1, and I pulled wide away from it. That's when something happened that I can barely describe.

The new ship began a solo attack run against the cruiser. I thought it was lining up for a warhead drop, but it was lining up for a clear close-range shot with some kind of energy weapon. Four blasts fired directly in front of the craft and then combined into a composite beam. It was over quickly, two shots. The shots ate through the Light Cruiser like it was a TIE fighter being hit by a turbolaser (which actually happened and I treated the gunner to a drink). Not only was the cruiser disabled, but it completely blew. It was impossible.

The Ghost entered the atmosphere to make the drop as we fighters turned our attention back to the blockade. I flipped around and did an attack run on one of the Gozanti transports. My lasers took care of the majority of its shield power and a couple concussion missiles turned its bridge into a crater.

I felt an impact and immediately stood my fighter up on its starboard wing. I pulled around and fired a glancing blow at the pair of TIEs that were on my tail. The shot nicked the first, punching a hole in its solar wing but not doing any real damage. His wingman wasn't so lucky. He juked out of my targeting bracket and slammed into the remains of the transport.

Ten and Eleven had formed up and began a run on the turbolasers of one of the light cruisers. I targeted the same and loosed a single concussion missile. The turbolaser stopped firing, but I saw that it hadn't been breached. The blue lines along it's weapon systems told me that it wouldn't be firing for quite some time.

The new fighter fired its weapon system again and the blast completely gutted the remaining transport. It went through and clipped the engine of one of the cruisers. My readings showed light damage, but it ate through the aft shields.

We received word from Commander Sato, who had taken command of the _Surprise_ without telling anyone, that the _Ghost_ had made its drop. The new fighter, now pursued by the two remaining TIEs was docking with the _Phantom_. A quick glance showed that the smaller ship was now hyperspace capable, which was a bonus.

I targeted one of the TIEs and fired a concussion missile before turning and blowing the other apart with my lasers. My scopes showed that the only remaining friendlies were Cresh, so I gave the order to jump and waited until I was the last ship in the system before activing my hyperdrive.

We got back to the fleet in time to be held off from docking. The _Surprise_ was docked on one side of the _Liberator_ and the _Ghost_ on the other. After a few minutes, the _Surprise_ pulled away and jumped out along with _Transport Two_. It took a little work, but the new fighter parked into a tight fit in the forward hold of the _Emancipator_. A little more maneuvering, with the _Emancipator_ dropping Spectre 2 (and I later found out, Spectre 5) back aboard the _Liberator_.

After all of the personnel changes, Cresh was allowed to dock. I got the honor of the docking bay. By the time I finished post-flight and got to the briefing room, I learned that Captain Syndulla had been granted command of Phoenix Squadron and the callsign of Phoenix Leader.

Her first official order was to promote Besh to Aurek and move Cresh up to Besh. I congratulated Five on becoming the new One, even though she sounded indifferent while pulling patrol. That also meant that I was the new Five, and second stick in the Squadron. Commander Sato assured me that Besh would remain aboard the Liberator. Two was promoted to Lieutenant and reassigned to Nine, third stick, with the rest of Aurek becoming the new Cresh.

With all of the datawork out of the way, the party began. Someone brought in Alderaanian Ale and some Corellian Whiskey. I took three shots over to the new Besh and we toasted Thaema. I noticed out of the corner of my eye that Captain Syndulla raised her glass along with us, doing the same when Cresh toasted Lieutenant Commander Olis. We continued the party for about another hour, toasting Captain Syndulla, holding a mock board of inquiry to make sure she knew what she was getting herself into, and all the other stuff that pilots like to do among pilots.

After the festivities died down and Korra helped me drag Olivar back to his bunk, I went to the briefing room to do what I knew I had to do. I'd taken the command classes at the academy, had all of the briefings, and knew what needed to happen. However, I just sat there staring at the blank screen while my mind drowned in a void.

Captain Syndulla startled me, but asked me to call her Hera. It was ship's night, so the lights were low in the room. She sat down next to me and put a cup of caf on the table in front of me. We were quiet for a time, me sipping on the caf and politely not spitting it out. (Who in the galaxy puts sweetener in caf?)

She asked me who, and I told her about Thaema. From my first meeting, how poor her manners were, the time on Oon, and her she had recently been promoted. Hera reached for the datapad and told me that she was Phoenix Leader and the job fell to the both of us. I gently intercepted her hand and gave it a little squeeze while thanking her. I told her that Thaema was in my Flight Group and it should come from me. We'd both be doing enough of these in the future, but that this one should be mine.

 **[RECORDING FUNCTION ACTIVATED...]**

 _Dear Mr. and Mrs. Elish,_

 _We regret to inform you of your daughter's death. We know it comes as striking news to you, your family, and loved ones. How tragic that men and women must depart from this life at such a young age. Our deepest sympathies and affections are extended to you and your family. We – and I especially – cannot begin to comprehend the grief and sorrow that you'll experience within the next few days._

 _In this vocation lives of good people, like your daughter, are put on the line to save others, and to better the galaxy in which we must live. This means any small error can be costly. Our flight group failed to protect your daughter, and together we will forever regret it._

 _We honored and revered your daughter – our sister and comrade – in life; we wish to bequeath her memory in death. May the Force be with you; may it remain with you and comfort you in your trials and loneliness._

 _We extend to you our deepest regrets and most sincere apologies._

 _Respectfully yours,_

 _Ander Sonalex_

 _Lieutenant_

 _Phoenix Squadron_

 **[RECORDING FUNCTION DEACTIVATED...]  
**

It was simple and straight forward, but I still didn't feel like it would be enough. It sounded too mechanical, too much like a droid had written it. Should I have told them more? Should I have told them of the friends and comrades that she had made? Should I have told them of how skilled their daughter was in the cockpit?

Hera smiled and told me that it was one of the best letters she had ever heard, given the circumstances. She took the datapad and copied the file into the ship's databanks. She then used the same to send to Kavin Olis' wife. I didn't even know he was married.

We spoke a little bit longer, mostly talking about the Blade Wing. After a bit, Hera stifled a yawn and excused herself. I probably needed some sleep too, since the over-sweet caf was starting to wear off. I made my way back to the turbolift when I got a message from Serim to meet her in the hangar.

It was dark, except for the safety lights to keep people from killing themselves on random tools. However, the door to the maintenance room was opened ever so slightly and I saw the warm glow of a light from inside. I opened the door and saw that she had set up a couple of cots.

She pulled me out of my flight gear and boots and pulled me onto one of the cots. She half covered the two of us with a survival blanket and hugged herself to my chest. I felt her tears on my flight suit and heard her sobs. We just held each other until we both fell asleep. I wasn't the only one who didn't want to be alone.


	18. Entry 018

Entry 018: Waiting and coping...

It's not the time you are busy that the thoughts creep in, but the times you aren't busy. When you're tearing apart a sensor assembly, you can focus on what you're doing. You know the hydrospanner needs to be held at the proper angle, the assembly crystals need to be aligned just so, and you need to concentrate on holding the panel properly while tightening it down. When you have things to do, your mind isn't wandering.

Even at the end of the day, there are things that can distract you. You could go out to the town and mingle with spacers from a hundred worlds. You could get a room with a trusted friend and lose yourself in their embrace. You could even rent a "friend" to lose yourself for a couple of hours, longer if you have the credits. There are always distractions to be had on the town.

Missions are a little more difficult, though. Being one fighter down is a constant reminder, but you can push it to the back of your mind because you need to focus on what you have and not on what you don't have. There are some missions, such as having Tensinel piloting a Taylander Shuttle called _Haven's Express_ to pick up a pair of Imperial defectors on Klonoid where the single wingman I have makes it seem like a normal mission.

Then you land and wait. The engines are supposed to be hot for a quick escape, so there's no maintenance you can focus on. The planet is devoid of everything but an old rarely used smuggling base on an entirely different continent, so there's no reason to keep your eye on the sky. The planet is in the middle of nowhere and off the Imperial patrol routes, so there is no need to keep your eyes on the sensor readout.

I popped my canopy and went to sit on the extended boarding ramp of the shuttle with Olivar and Tensinel. Korra came down not long after and wrapped her arm around Olivar's shoulder (she was co-piloting the Taylander). I kept my helmet on with the sensor and comms from my fighter projected on my visor. Otherwise there was just time.

The restructuring brought with it some big changes. For one thing, I was now Phoenix Five, Olivar was Six, and Tensinel was Seven. We still didn't have an Eight or Twelve. Aurek was the only full group with Besh and Cresh being one fighter down. Commander Sato said that Ahsoka was getting us some replacements, but not to expect them for at least a full rotation.

Olivar brought up how he missed the overly loud belching. I had to chuckle and remembered the crew applauding after one echoed around the mess hall for at least five seconds after she stopped. We were silent after that. I had my helmet on and my eyes blindly fixed on the sensor readout, but everyone else were looking at nothing.

I lost my entire squadron, but this was different. I knew them for about four weeks before Vader blew them all apart. Thaema was in my flight for eleven weeks, and she felt like my little sister. Sure, she was the little sister that was raised on the edge of wildspace by a bunch of gundarks, but she was still my little sister. The others thought of her the same way.

Before we left for this mission, just after the briefing, Captain Rex approached me and led me up to the troop deck of the _Liberator_. He asked me how I was holding up and I gave him the same droid-like answer I had given pretty much everyone. He called me out on it, shoved me against a wall locker, and asked me how I was holding up. I pretty much broke down on the spot.

I yelled, I screamed, I cried, and I single-handedly destroyed a troop bunk. After all was said and done, he clapped me on the shoulder and told me that he felt the exact same way every time he lost a brother. I asked him how many he had lost and he chuckled darkly and responded that he lost at least 60,000 that he knew about and all but two afterwards. We spent the next couple of hours reassembling the bunk and he even complimented me on how well I made it. Under his breath, he said something about how the Imperial Academies must not have been that poorly run.

I was snapped out of my memories by a blip on my sensors. It resolved itself into something much larger than the courier shuttle it was supposed to be. I screamed out that we had a Capital Ship incoming as I ran back to my fighter. I had the hatch sealed by the time I was able to identify it: _Imperial I_ -class Star Destroyer. By the time I was airborne, the repulsors pushing far enough into the sky to engage my engines, it was further identified as the _Relentless_.

It was coming straight in on our departure vector, using the same approach as the shuttle carrying the two defectors should have been using. That meant they were now in Imperial custody and the entire operation was blown. So much for that idea, now to get out of the system before we were either captured or destroyed.

The problem wasn't so much getting out of the system, but doing so with _Haven's Express_. I called over the radio to skirt the planet and make our way to the smuggler's base. Korra called back that the Star Destroyer would easily follow us. It was true; the capital ship was a slug. But, it was currently a slug in a vacuum without any atmospheric resistance to slow it down. On top of that, my on-board computer informed me that it was launching TIE fighters.

In space, A-Wings and TIE fighters were fairly evenly matched. The A-Wing was faster, but the TIE was lighter and more maneuverable. However, in an atmosphere, the A-Wing had an edge. The TIE fighter could climb and dive just as well in the atmosphere as it could in space, but it had problems with spins and turning thanks to those two huge wind vanes attached to the cockpit. The A-Wing, on the other hand, had thrust vector surfaces on the rear and an aerodynamic shape that allowed it to maneuver in an atmosphere like it was designed for that kind of combat.

As the fighters dove through the thick soup of the upper atmosphere, their incline shallower than a shielded craft required, I told Six to wait for my order and then break left to come at the eyeballs from their sides. The first craft made it through the clouds and leveled for an attack run on the shuttle when I gave the word.

I broke right, making for the second flight. I lined up my shots as the first flight began a slow turn to put me in their sights. They didn't get anywhere near me when Six's lasers showered the remains of the entire flight onto the shallow sea below. I was able to catch two of the fighters when a third rolled and pulled up to shower my forward shields with lasers. We passed each other close enough for me to wince in preparation for my wing to collide with his cockpit.

There was static over my comms for a moment before the precise clip of a Coruscani accent filled my speakers. It gave the typical "surrender now or be destroyed" speech that I was used to hearing. However, I recognized the voice. It was one I had heard every single day for what seemed forever a lifetime ago

I opened the channel and told the speaker that three to one was fairly poor odds for him and that he should have been better at math since he tutored me on it at the academy. I heard surprise in his voice as he practically yelled my name over the comms.

I wasn't idle while this conversation was going on. I was trying, and failing, to get him into the same kind of a lock he was attempting on me. That's when Seven alerted me to an exit. The Star Destroyer was making its way into the atmosphere on a course straight to the smuggler base. Their comm-scan probably told them about it and they decided it was the Rebel base. Boy, would they be in for a treat when they discovered it completely abandoned and booby-trapped.

Willex told me over the comms to give up and turn myself in. I just laughed and told him to open his eyes. He must have, because he juked at the last second to avoid Six's lasers. With two of us on him, he pulled up and began making his way for the incoming wing of yet more TIE fighters.

It didn't matter, though. The Star Destroyer was in atmosphere and not getting out anytime soon. I pushed my thrusters to flank speed and caught up with _Haven's Express_ just as it broke the atmosphere. Seven sent me the nav-coordinates and we all made the jump to hyperspace.

Commander Sato was saddened to hear the loss of the defectors and Ahsoka didn't take it too well either. Commander Sato asked if there was a leak, but Ahsoka said there couldn't have been. Her reports from the area said it was an Imperial Agent that caused the problem.

With nothing else to do, I went back to maintenance. It was too early to hit the cantinas for a drink and too late to sleep. I found Serim down working on my fighter and gave her a hand.


End file.
